Hey Fatema,
In scientific research, a conflict of interest happens when a researcher has something, like money or a personal connection, that could make them biased. For example, if a scientist is paid by a drug company to test its medicine, they might feel pressure to say it works even if it doesn’t. These situations can affect how honest the research is, so scientists must tell others about anything that could make them less objective. This helps keep science fair and trustworthy.
For easier understanding, you can refer to any journals authors guideline section.
Dear Fatema Alalyan , you may find related research question with many sources and replies about conflict of interest. This may be helpful for your research.
Follow the link:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_your_take_on_conflict_of_interest/4
I may recommend also the following resource:
Conflict of interest in research: what is it and why it matters?
"As researchers, we are often required to disclose any conflicts of interest we might have, for instance, when submitting a paper to a journal, or when acting as reviewers of a research project at the request of a funding agency. Over the past few decades, the duty to declare conflicts of interest has become a normal component of academic life. However, the concept is sometimes misunderstood, especially by novel researchers who may mistakenly believe that the mere existence of such a conflict is per se a violation of ethical principles, which is not.
What is exactly a conflict of interest? And why it matters from the point of view of research integrity?
A conflict of interest in research can be defined as a situation in which an individual has “interests in the outcome of the research that may lead to a personal advantage and that might therefore, in actuality or appearance, compromise the integrity of the research” ... A key feature of this situation is that the same individual is involved in two competing interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation of the other and introduce bias in his or her professional judgement..."
https://h2020integrity.eu/conflict-of-interest-in-research-what-is-it-and-why-it-matters/
Conflicts of interest in climate change science
My colleagues and I have a new preprint available for review and comment taking a first step towards understanding these dynamics in climate change research:
Conflicts of Interest, Funding Support, and Author Affiliation in Peer-Reviewed Research on the Relationship between Climate Change and Geophysical Characteristics of Hurricanes
https://osf.io/f4cdu
Our most important finding is that none of the 331 authors disclosed COIs. Not a single one!
Given the confluence between government, academia, industry, and NGOs in climate research, many researchers may have non-financial COIs they are not disclosing.
To promote objectivity, transparency, and trust in climate science, journals that publish climate change research should clearly state that authors must disclose financial and non-financial COIs and provide clear processes for doing so."
https://jessicaweinkle.substack.com/p/conflicts-of-interest-in-climate
Declaring funding sources for research
The source of funding for research should be clearly described in published manuscripts. This allows reviewers, editors, and readers to consider potential conflicts of interest. It also allows funding agencies to monitor the research output of their grantees and to try to prevent fraud. What are the best practices for publishing complete funding statements?
"Declaring funding sources transparently contributes to the integrity of the published record, and is an opportunity to hold those involved accountable for how grant money is spent. It allows readers to assess possible conflicts of interest relating to funding, and gives grantees the opportunity demonstrate how the grant money was spent. For funders, transparent declarations are a way to track the output from research they have supported, and to ensure that the money has been spent to produce relevant outputs. They are an important way to prevent fraud, for example, authors citing grants not awarded, omitting relevant grants, or including authors not associated with the grant..."
https://publicationethics.org/topic-discussions/declaring-funding-sources-research
A literature review of non-financial conflicts of interest in healthcare research and publication
"Conflicts of interest (COIs) in healthcare research have received substantial attention over the past three decades. Although financial COI (FCOI) has an extensive literature, publications about non-financial COI (NFCOI) are comparatively rare. Disagreements surrounding the importance of NFCOIs in research and publication, including whether competing non-financial interests should even be considered COIs, present significant gaps in the literature. This lack of clarity prompted our literature review’s aim to determine the current consensus about how NFCOIs should be treated in healthcare research and publication...
The topic of NFCOI enjoys far less attention and consensus compared to FCOI’s robust body of literature developed over decades. We found general agreement about the relevance of NFCOIs and the need to address them, but not how to do so. Our results are consistent with Wiersma et al., the first review on this topic. Taken together, these reviews suggest a path forward for researchers, publishers, and healthcare professionals requiring new approaches for NFCOI management."
https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-025-01221-5
This is fine example for COI.
Journal corrects nearly 100 papers after authors fail to disclose they are on the editorial board
"Wiley has issued a mass correction at one of its journals after finding nearly 100 papers with undisclosed conflicts of interest related to submissions by board members and relationships between authors and journal editors.
An investigation found conflict of interest issues in 98 papers published from 2020 to 2025 in Geological Journal, although the issues may have gone on before then, sleuths suggest. Nearly a third of the papers shared a single co-author — an associate editor at the journal.
That editor’s contract was not renewed, we have learned..."
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/06/17/geological-journal-wiley-correction-authors-fail-to-disclose-conflict-of-interest/
When it comes to conflicts of interest, affiliations are apparently no smoking gun
"Seven papers on various aspects of vaping and cigarettes published in Toxicology Reports listed each authors’ affiliation – the tobacco company Philip Morris International – when they originally appeared in the journal between 2019 and 2023. And all but one article disclosed the funding for the research originated from the company.
That apparently wasn’t enough for the journal.
Toxicology Reports has issued a correction to add those affiliations as a conflict of interest. The statements were “missing or incorrect” in the original papers, according to the correction notice, published in the June 2025 issue of Toxicology Reports. In addition to reiterating that the authors work for PMI, the correction also adds to the conflict of interest statements that the authors were funded by the company and used its products in the research..."
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/07/08/conflict-of-interest-affiliation-toxicology-reports-elsevier/
Error Prompts Oncologists to Sound Alarm Over Conflict-of-Interest Reporting
"Oncologists have increasingly expressed concerns that representatives from pharmaceutical companies have too much of a role in preparing articles for medical journals, with some recently speaking out against the practice on social media. Many of those weighing in online say that greater efforts are needed to set better boundaries for these types of collaborations.
“We have to be very transparent our about our conflicts of interest, and we need to be mindful that when we collaborate with pharma, we should be equal partners, with pharma designing and creating the drugs, and we as academic researchers bearing the responsibility of reporting our results in an objective and truthful manner,” Enrique Soto Perez de Celis (Soto), MD, PhD, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Aurora, told Oncology News Central (ONC)...
“If you are not writing your own papers and somebody else is writing them for you, with a conflict of interest, then I think we should look at this, just as we are being very judgmental on how people use [artificial intelligence (AI)]. I don’t see many differences between using AI and using a medical writer or having pharma write your paper for you,” said Dr. Soto."
https://www.oncologynewscentral.com/oncology/error-prompts-oncologists-to-sound-alarm-over-conflict-of-interest-reporting
The Vice President of a society which owns Journal A, also editor of another journal, accessed Journal A’s database without permission, raising ethical breaches and conflicts of interest. How should Journal A prevent this in future?
https://publicationethics.org/guidance/case/conflicts-interest-scholarly-society-and-inappropriate-access-author-information
A Question of Conflicts at America’s Top Pediatrician Association
Some critics — including the Trump administration — have expressed concerns about the influence of corporate funding on U.S. medical societies, including the American Academy of Pediatrics. The group should do more, they say, to disclose potential conflicts of interest...
"Recently, new immunization recommendations from the AAP came under fire from Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who argued in an Aug. 19 post on X that AAP “should disclose conflicts of interest” in order to allow Americans to “ask whether the AAP’s recommendations reflect public health interest, or are, perhaps, just a pay-to-play scheme to promote commercial ambitions of AAP’s Big Pharma benefactors.”
Kennedy, who founded an organization that questions the safety of common vaccines, and who has participated in lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers, may carry his own conflicts of interest. And funding or consulting relationships between physicians and pharmaceutical companies are not unusual. But Kennedy’s comments, even if ideologically motivated, do echo broader concerns about the influence that corporate funding might have at many U.S. medical societies, including the AAP — and about why the flagship pediatrics organization does not do more to disclose potential conflicts of interest in its guidelines and other official recommendations and endorsements..."
https://undark.org/2025/09/04/conflicts-pediatrician-association/
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