Conflicts of Interest Policy

A conflict of interest encompasses any situation in which a person's (author, reviewer, editor, or journal staff) professional judgment may be influenced by financial, personal, or professional relationships.

For authors: All authors must clearly disclose any existing or potential conflicts of interest at the time of submission. If no conflict exists, this must be explicitly stated in the manuscript (e.g., "The authors declare no competing interests."). This statement appears in the full text of every published article.

For reviewers: Reviewers who have a financial, personal, or professional conflict of interest related to a manuscript should decline the review invitation or disclose it to the editor.

For editors: Editors must not be involved in the review process for manuscripts submitted by authors with whom they have a personal or professional relationship; such manuscripts are handled by another editor.

Manuscripts submitted by editorial board members: Manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-Chief, associate editors, or editorial board members undergo an independent review process in which the submitting individual is not involved in the decision-making.

At the publisher/owner level: BAUDER (the journal's owner and publisher) does not intervene in editorial decisions for commercial or institutional interests.