The most easily identifiable conflict of interest are economic relationships such as direct employment, payment for consultancies, participation in companies, fees, authorship of patents or payments for conferences. However, there may also be conflict of interest arising from friendships, intellectual rivalries, academic competitions or beliefs. When submitting a manuscript for publication, all authors are responsible for declaring any financial or personal relationship with any public or private entity that could (intentionally) influence the results of their work. Similarly, authors must declare any non-financial relationship that could cause a conflict of interest in their manuscript (personal, academic, ideological, intellectual, political or religious).

Conflict of interest, both financial and non-financial, must be disclosed at the time the manuscript is submitted. The idea is not to prevent authors with potential conflict of interest from publishing; it is that such conflict can be clearly identified, so that the readers can judge if the authors could be affected by some predisposition and this could influence the work. A note "Conflict of interest" will be published at the end of the article. In case of its absence, the note will say "None".