---
title: "Conflicts of interest in academic publishing"
chunk: 4/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflicts_of_interest_in_academic_publishing"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:14:28.683683+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The ICMJE requires that "All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged." Academics who have had publication ethics training and those who are aware of the ICMJE authorship criteria are more stringent in their concepts of authorship and are more likely to consider breaches of authorship as misconduct, as are more junior researchers. Awareness is low; one study found only about half of researchers had read the ICJME criteria.

=== COIs of study sponsors ===
If a study requires outside funding, this can be a major source of conflicting interests; for instance in cases where the manufacturer of a drug is funding a study into its safety and efficacy or where the sponsor hopes to use the research to defend itself in litigation. Sponsors of a study may involve themselves in the design, execution, analysis, and write-up of a study. In extreme cases, they may carry out the research and ghostwrite the article with almost no involvement from the nominal author. Movie-style credits are advocated as a way to avoid this.
There are many opportunities for bias in trial design and trial reporting. For instance, a trial that compares a drug against the wrong dose of a competing drug may produce spuriously positive results.
In some cases, a contract with a sponsor may mean those named as investigators and authors on the papers may not have access to the trial data, control over the publication text, or the freedom to talk about their work. While authors and institutions have an interest in avoiding such contracts, it conflicts with their interest in competing for funding from potential study sponsors. Institutions that set stricter ethical standards for sponsor contracts lose contracts and funding when sponsors go elsewhere.
Sponsors have required contractual promises that the study is not reported without the sponsor's approval (gag clauses) and some have sued authors over compliance. Trials may go unpublished to keep commercial information secret or because the trial results were unfavourable. Some journals require that human trials be registered to be considered for publication; some require the declaration of any gag clauses as a conflict of interest; since 2001, some also require a statement that the authors have not agreed to a gag clause. Some journals require a promise to provide access to the original data to researchers intending to replicate the work. Some research ethics boards, universities, and national laws prohibit gag clauses. Gag clauses may not be legally enforceable if compliance would cause sufficient public harm. Non-publication has been found to be more common in industry-funded trials, contributing to publication bias.
It has been suggested that having many sponsors with different interests protects against COI-induced bias. As of 2006, there was no evidence for or against this hypothesis.

== Effect on conclusions of research ==
There is evidence that industry funding of studies of medical devices and drugs results in these studies having more positive conclusions regarding efficacy (funding bias). A similar relationship has been found in clinical trials of surgical interventions, where industry funding leads to researchers exaggerating the positive nature of their findings. Not all studies have found a statistically significant relationship between industry funding and the study outcome.

== Interests of research participants ==
Chronically ill medical research participants report expectation of being told about COIs and some report they would not participate if the researcher had some sorts of COIs. With few exceptions, multiple ethical guidelines forbid researchers with a financial interest in the outcome from being involved in human trials.
The consent agreements entered into with study participants may be legally binding on the academics but not on the sponsor, unless the sponsor has a contractual commitment saying otherwise.
Ethical rules, including the Declaration of Helsinki, require the publication of results of human trials. participants in which are often motivated by a desire to improve medical knowledge. Patients may be harmed if safety data, such risks to patients, are kept secret. Duties to human-research participants can therefore conflict with interests in non-publication such as gag clauses.

== Publication of COI declarations ==
Some journals place COI declarations at the beginning of an article but most put it in smaller print at the end. Positioning makes a difference; if readers feel they are being manipulated from the beginning of a text, they read more critically than if the same feeling is produced at the end of a text.
According to the ICMJE, "each journal should develop standards with regard to the form the [COI] information should take and where it will be posted". It is often placed after the body of the article, just before the reference section. Some COI statements, like those of anonymous reviewers, may not be published at all. (see § COIs of peer reviewers) COI statements are sometimes paywalled so they are only visible to those who have paid for full text access. This is not considered ethical by the Committee on Publication Ethics.
In 2017 PubMed began including COI statements at the end of the abstract and before the body of the article after receiving complaints that because COI declarations were only included in full article texts, they often went unseen in paywalled articles. Only COI statements that are appropriately formatted and tagged by the publisher are included.
Science journalism rarely reports COI information from the academic article reported upon; in some studies, fewer than 1% of stories included COI information.

== False statements of COIs ==
Failure to disclose a conflict of interest may, depending on the circumstances, be considered a form of corruption or academic misconduct.

== See also ==
Academic authorship
Metascience
Research Integrity Risk Index

== References ==

== External links ==
Responsible Conduct of Research: Conflicts of Interest. Online course, Columbia University.