Authorship & COI

Submission of a manuscript implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content and that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s policies.

Authorship Requirements
Authorship is defined on the basis of the following 4 criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work.
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
3. Final approval of the version to be published.
4. In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

A procedure to prevent „ghostwriting” and „guest authorship”:
In order to counteract cases of "ghostwriting" and "guest authorship", the editorial board obliges authors to:

• certify the significance of their contribution in terms of specific activities in the creation of the manuscript
• provide information on the sources of funding of the articles, contributions from scientific research institutions, associations and other entities ("financial disclosure").

Conflicts of Interest

Conflict of Interest for Authors:
Editorial board authors to declare all competing interests in relation to their work. Competing interests may be financial or non-financial. Submission of an article will include a declaration by the author regarding the authors' conflicts of interest.

Conflict of Interest of Reviewers:
Editorial board adheres to double blind peer review by experts who have other work affiliation than authors. During double-blind peer review, reviewers are asked to note whether they have identified the authors of the manuscript and whether they perceive that they may have a potential conflict of interest with the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest of Editors:
Manuscripts in which the editor in chief perceives that they themselves may have a conflict of interest are handled by the other editor and by other members of the editorial board. Members of the editorial teams with potential conflicts of interest with regards to a manuscript are excluded from reviewing or evaluating that manuscript. Manuscripts written by members of the editorial teams still subject to the double blind peer review process and the author-editor is asked, as are all authors, for a conflict of interest statement.