Abstract
Editors have increasing pressure as scholarly publishing tries to shore up trust and reassure academics and the public that traditional peer review is robust, fail-safe, and corrective. Hidden conflicts of interest (COIs) may skew the fairness of the publishing process because they could allow the status of personal or professional relationships to positively influence the outcome of peer review or reduce the processing period of this process. Not all authors have such privileged relationships. In academic journals, editors usually have very specialized skills and are selected as agents of trust, entrusted with the responsibility of serving as quality control gate-keepers during peer review. In many cases, editors form extensive networks, either with other professionals, industry, academic bodies, journals, or publishers. Such networks and relationships may influence their decisions or even their subjectivity towards a set of submitting authors, paper, or institute, ultimately influencing the peer review process. These positions and relationships are not simply aspects of a curriculum, they are potential COIs. Thus, on the editorial board of all academic journals, editors should carry a COI statement that reflects their past history, as well as actual relationships and positions that they have, as these may influence their editorial functions.
Highlights
Editors have increasing pressure as scholarly publishing tries to shore up trust and reassure academics and the public that traditional peer review is robust, failsafe, and corrective
In order to simplify the discussion, the term Beditors^ will be used broadly to describe any editorial position, independent of rank, we recognize that there is a chain of command that reflects a level of responsibility, with the editor in chief (EiC) usually being responsible for all editorial decisions and for what eventually gets published in their journal
The objective of this paper is to show how accountability and transparency in the publishing process can be increased by expecting editors to display their conflicts of interest (COIs)
Summary
Editors have increasing pressure as scholarly publishing tries to shore up trust and reassure academics and the public that traditional peer review is robust, failsafe, and corrective. Hidden conflicts of interest (COIs) may skew the fairness of the publishing process because they could allow the status of personal or professional relationships to positively influence the outcome of peer review or reduce the processing period of this process. Editors usually have very specialized skills and are selected as agents of trust, entrusted with the responsibility of serving as quality control gatekeepers during peer review. Editors form extensive networks, either with other professionals, industry, academic bodies, journals, or publishers. Such networks and relationships may influence their. According to a white paper published by the Council for Science Editors (CSE), editors, especially of scientific journals, have responsibilities towards authors, peer reviewers, the journal itself, advancement of science, and the general public (Council of Science Editors 2019). The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) explains that a COI exists when:
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