What conflicts of interests are Editors required to declare?

Journal Editors/Editorial Board Members

All Editors are required to declare any conflicts of interest that may impact the peer review and decision-making process. If a conflict arises, an alternative member of the Editorial board must be appointed and the Editor with the conflict must recuse themselves from the decision-making process. These conflicts include financial and non-financial interests listed above.

If the Editor is based at the same institution as the authors or has previously conducted research with them in the last three years, they should recuse themselves from the peer review and decision-making process. 

Journal Editors or members of the editorial board submitting their research to their own journals may do so and must declare their involvement with the journal as a conflict of interest. Where applicable, the Journal Editor or Editorial Board member must recuse themselves from the peer review process. The Journal Editor must appoint another member of the Editorial board who will invite two or more subject experts to evaluate the manuscript.  

Guest Editors

Guest Editors may submit their research to a special issue or special collection they are leading and must declare a conflict of interest upon submission. Where Guest Editors are involved in peer review and final decisions, their submissions will be handled by an alternate member of the editorial board or the Journal Editor.  

For further information, please see Sage's Publication ethics and research integrity guidelines for authors.