Conflict of Interest Policy

A Conflict of Interest (COI), or competing interest, arises when financial, commercial, legal, professional, or personal affiliations could inappropriately influence—or reasonably be perceived to influence—the conduct, interpretation, peer review, or editorial evaluation of scientific research.

Transparency is paramount. The presence of a competing interest is not in itself unethical or grounds for rejection; however, the failure to fully and transparently disclose such interests compromises the integrity of scholarly inquiry.

Potential competing interests can encompass diverse relationships:

• Financial Interests: Direct employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or equity holdings, paid expert testimony, patent applications or registrations, and research grants from commercial sponsors.
• Professional & Academic Ties: Close collaborations, joint grant applications, recent co-authorship within the past 36 months, or ongoing scientific rivalries.
• Institutional Affiliations: Employment at the same university department, institute, or corporate entity as a contributing author.
• Personal Relationships: Family ties, mentorship bonds, or personal relationships between authors and handling editors or invited peer reviewers.

All authors must complete the mandatory conflict-of-interest declaration during manuscript submission. The finalized manuscript must contain an explicit “Declaration of Competing Interest” heading positioned before the References section.

Editors-in-Chief, Associate Editors, and Section Editors must adhere to strict recusal protocols:

• An editor who is an author or co-author on a submitted manuscript has no involvement in the editorial evaluation or referee selection for that paper. The submission is assigned to an independent guest editor.
• Editors must recuse themselves from handling submissions authored by current department colleagues, recent advisees, or frequent research collaborators.
• All editorial decision letters must document that the handling editor possessed no competing interest with the manuscript.

Invited peer reviewers are required to declare any potential conflicts upon receiving a review invitation and recuse themselves if:

• They recognize the work despite double-anonymization and share institutional ties or recent collaborations with the authors.
• They are in direct commercial or scientific competition on the specific technology or algorithm under review.
• They have had prior input into the manuscript or acted as a paid advisor on the project.

If an undisclosed conflict of interest is identified post-publication, IJREK follows COPE guidelines:

• The Editor-in-Chief requests clarification and disclosure documentation from the corresponding author.
• A formal Correction Notice (Corrigendum) will be published linking to the original article with the updated disclosure statement.
• In severe cases where an undisclosed commercial conflict compromised the objectivity of the reported scientific results, an Expression of Concern or Retraction may be issued.