Conflicts of Interest (COI) Policy

Global Virology Reports (GVR) is committed to ensuring transparency, objectivity, and integrity in the publishing process. A conflict of interest (COI) exists when a participant's professional judgment may be unduly influenced by secondary interests, such as financial gain or personal relationships. The disclosure of all potential conflicts is mandatory for all participants—authors, reviewers, and editors.

Scope of Disclosures
Conflicts of Interest can be financial, personal, professional, or academic, and include, but are not limited to:

·       Financial Interests: Employment, consultancies, stock ownership, stock options, patents, honoraria, grants, and other direct or indirect financial support. This includes any funding sources that supported the research.

·       Personal Relationships: Familial, marital, or other close personal relationships with individuals involved in the work or its evaluation.

·       Professional Affiliations: Current or recent (e.g., within the past 3 years) institutional affiliations, mentorship relationships, or collaborations with the authors.

·       Academic Competition: Direct intellectual competition, such as ongoing, parallel research that could be influenced by the manuscript's findings, or a history of public disagreement on a relevant scientific issue.

·       Political or Religious Beliefs: Any strongly held non-financial interests that could be perceived as influencing the work, if directly relevant to the research topic.

Author Responsibilities

·       All authors must disclose any potential COI during the manuscript submission process by completing the journal's official declaration form.

·       A summary of disclosed COIs will be published within the article, typically in a "Conflicts of Interest" section preceding the reference list. If no conflicts exist, the statement "The authors declare no competing interests" will be included.

Reviewer Responsibilities

·       Reviewers must decline to review a manuscript if they perceive a significant COI that could compromise their objectivity.

·       Upon accepting an invitation to review, reviewers must declare any potential conflicts to the handling editor, who will assess whether the review can proceed.

Editorial Responsibilities

·       Editors and Editorial Board members must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where they have a COI.

·       The Editor-in-Chief will reassign such manuscripts to an alternative editor with no such conflict.

·       Editors must maintain the confidentiality of all COI disclosures and use this information to ensure a fair and unbiased peer review process.

Management of Undeclared Conflicts
Failure to disclose a relevant conflict of interest may result in serious consequences, including the rejection of the manuscript, retraction of a published article, and/or a ban on future submissions for the authors or participation in the review process for the reviewer.