How to write and publish a scientific paper - Barbara Gastel, Robert A. Day 2022

Disclosure of conflicts of interest
Ethics in scientific publishing
Some preliminaries

Authors of scientific papers sometimes have conflicts of interest—that is, outside involvements that could, at least in theory, interfere with their objectivity in the research being reported. For example, they may own stock in the company making the product being studied, or they may be consultants to the company.

Journals commonly require authors to report such conflicts of interest. Some have checklists for doing so, and others ask more generally for disclosure. Journals have varied in the degree to which they note conflicts of interest along with published papers (Clark 2005).

Ethics requires honest reporting of conflicts of interest. More important, ethics demands that such involvements not interfere with the objectivity of your research. Some scientists avoid all such involvements to prevent even the appearance of bias.