Transparency & Reproducibility

A financial, personal, professional, academic, ideological, political or institutional relationship or circumstance that could reasonably be perceived to influence a person's judgement or conduct in relation to a submission, publication or decision. Proof of actual bias is not required; holding a disclosed interest is not itself misconduct.

A competing interest arising from money or economic value, including employment, consultancy, honoraria, advisory roles, grants, equity, patents and licensing income, paid travel, and attributable payments to a person's institution.

A competing interest arising otherwise than from economic value, including close personal, family, supervisory or collaborative relationships, competing unpublished work, organisational roles, and ideological or institutional stakes engaged by the subject matter. A scholarly opinion alone is not a disqualifying interest.

A timely, specific, written statement of an interest to the party entitled to assess it, identifying its nature, the parties and the relevant period. Generic or unspecific statements do not satisfy the requirement.

Withdrawal from participation in a matter because a competing interest could affect, or reasonably appear to affect, impartiality, with reassignment to a person free of the conflict and a record of the decision. Recusal manages conflicts within permitted activity and cannot cure a prohibition, including B1's absolute same-journal publication prohibition.

A statement identifying each funder or sponsor of the work, the applicable award reference, and the funder's role in design, conduct, analysis, writing and the decision to submit — or an express statement that the funder had no such role. Distinct from, and not satisfied by, competing-interest disclosure.

A statement accompanying a research article specifying whether underlying data are available, where and under what conditions they may be accessed, or the specific reason they cannot be shared and any lawful route for access.

The recorded material — including datasets, measurements, images, code, protocols and materials — on which the reported findings depend.

A recognised, persistent archive that stores research data or code with descriptive metadata and a persistent identifier, supporting open or controlled access.

An arrangement under which data are discoverable and documented but released only through a defined approval process, such as a data-access committee or data-use agreement, adopted where privacy, consent, legal, commercial or community-governance limits preclude open release.

The capacity of others to obtain consistent results using the reported data and methods. Transparent availability supports reproducibility but neither guarantees it nor warrants the validity of findings.

Processing of a genuine research image that alters the information it conveys about the underlying result, including selective enhancement or suppression, undisclosed splicing, duplication presented as distinct data, and removal or introduction of features. Distinct from image reuse (C2) and AI-generated imagery (C4).