Competing Interest

According to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) , "Conflicts of interest arise when authors, editors, or reviewers have interests that are not fully apparent and that may influence their judgments on what is published and when revealed later, can make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived."

The most common competing interest cases involve financial or business relationships, which undermines the journals or author's credibility. Therefore, to preserve research integrity, The Dyal Singh Journal of Humanities and Social Science encourage authors, editors, and peer reviewers to mandatory disclose any conflict of interest, inclusive of personal or professional relationships, allegiances or hostilities to any political, social, or religious groups, financial aids for personal or professional gains, ideological beliefs, organization of interest, or any academic competition that might affect the work or review impartiality.

The editorial committee of Dyal Singh Journal of Humanities and Social Science is responsible for avoiding any competing interest in the research publications of this journal that may affect the interpretation of results and evaluation by the reviewers. In case of any potential competing interest, the author(s) shall provide a clear statement bearing the responsibility. They shall disclose the possible competing interests that can influence the decision about the publication of the article.

Article will not be considered by the editors for review if any conflict of interests arises from the collaborative or competitive connections of any of the author (s) or relevant institutions. It is desired that all contributors shall disclose competing interests during submission process. If there is any such revelation after the research is published, corrections or expression of interest and retraction will be issued where needed.  

For Authors
Author(s) must disclose all financial, personal & professional interests that might influence the publication, and evaluation of their submitted content. In the case of no competing interest, the author should mention, "The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests." But in case of competing interests, the author(s) must acknowledge or mention the following:

  • all types of financial support in the contributions.
  • any commercial or financial involvements that might present an appearance of a competing interest related to the contributions.
  • they have not signed any agreement with any sponsor of the research reported in the Contribution that prevents them from publishing both positive & negative results or forbids them from publishing this research without the sponsor's prior approval.


For Reviewer
Reviewers are also encouraged to declare their competing interest upon receiving a review invitation. In case of possible conflict that might bias evaluation of the article, the reviewer should decline the invitation and provide a summary of the conflict to the editor. Most popular competing interest with a reviewer's perspective include:

  • History of disagreement with the author(s)
  • Working on the same research project
  • Being a co-author in recent publications
  • A part of the pre-review process before the submission

Also, reviewers are not allowed to use the concept, methodology, or segment of the under-review article before its publication.

For Editors
Like authors and reviewers, the competing interest policy applies to the editors too. In case of any relationship/conflict that might bring biasness, the editor is recommended to refuse the handling of such manuscripts immediately.