Conflicts of Interest

As part of a series of documents detailing the Society's expectations for ethical behavior among its authors, editors, and staff, and guidelines for addressing allegations of scientific misconduct, ASPB has prepared this statement to address potential conflicts of interest for editors and reviewers. This document is adapted from "Conflict-of-Interests and Confidentiality Statement for NSF Panelists," NSF Form 1230P (2/04), National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA 22230.

"Ethics in Publishing: ASPB Policies and Procedures for Handling Allegations of Author Misconduct" and "Ethics in Publishing: ASPB Policies and Procedures for Handling Allegations of Editorial Misconduct" can be viewed at http://www.aspb.org/publications/ethics.cfm.

1. Your Affiliations with an Institution Could Create a Conflict If You:
• Have a known ownership interest of any kind in any entity involved in the research.
• Hold a current membership on a visiting committee or similar body at the institution. (This is a conflict only for manuscripts that originate from the department, school, or facility that the visiting committee or similar body advises.)
• Hold any office, governing board membership, or relevant committee chairmanship in the institution. (Ordinary membership in a professional society or association is not considered an office.)
2. Your Relationship, Professional or Financial, with an Author Could Create a Conflict If You:
• Have a family relationship such as a spouse, child, sibling, or parent, with an author.
• Have a business or professional partnership with an author.
• Have an association as a thesis research adviser or thesis student with an author within the past 10 years.
• Have an association as postdoctoral adviser or postdoctoral student with an author within the past 5 years.
• Have collaborated on a research project or a research publication with the author within the past 2 years.
3. Other Affiliations or Relationships with an Author Could Create a Conflict If:
• An author is legally your partner, or an author is a relative living in your immediate household.
• You have any relationship with an author, such as close personal friendship, that you think might tend to affect your judgment, or create the appearance or inference of doing so by a reasonable person familiar with the relationship.
4. Your Interest in the Subject Matter of the Manuscript Could Be a Conflict If You Have:
• Any financial interest in the subject matter described in the manuscript or if you have a professional interest (e.g., a manuscript submitted or in preparation that addresses very similar experimental work) that an observer might reasonably conclude could affect your ability to offer an objective evaluation.

This document was approved by the ASPB Executive Committee February 26, 2005.