Competing Interests

The International Journal of Computational Intelligence (IJCI) requires authors, reviewers, editors, and Editorial Board members to disclose any financial, professional, institutional, or personal interests that could reasonably affect, or appear to affect, the research or editorial process.

What Is a Competing Interest?

A competing interest may arise from employment, research funding, consultancy, honoraria, patents, investments, professional relationships, institutional affiliations, personal relationships, or other circumstances that could influence scholarly judgment or its perceived independence.

Authors

Authors must disclose relevant actual, potential, or perceived competing interests at submission. The disclosure should be included in a dedicated Competing Interests statement in the manuscript.

Where no competing interests exist, authors should state:

Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Reviewers and Editors

Reviewers and editors must identify circumstances that could prevent an independent assessment of a manuscript. Anyone with a relevant conflict should notify the Editorial Office and, where appropriate, withdraw from the review or editorial process.

An editor with a competing interest in a manuscript will not participate in its assessment or final decision. The manuscript may be reassigned to another qualified editor.

Editorial Board Members

Editorial Board members are subject to the same disclosure requirements when participating in peer review or editorial decision-making. Relevant conflicts must be declared before taking part in the process.

Undisclosed Interests

If a relevant competing interest is identified after submission or publication, IJCI may investigate the matter and take appropriate action. Depending on the circumstances, this may include requesting a disclosure, publishing a correction or expression of concern, or taking other measures necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

Transparency and Confidentiality

Competing-interest information is handled confidentially during editorial assessment. Relevant disclosures may be published with the article when necessary to provide transparency to readers.

Policy Review

IJCI may periodically review this policy to ensure that its disclosure practices remain consistent with responsible scholarly publishing and research integrity.