Conflicts of Interest

Ledger's Conflict of Interest Policy

To better ensure academic integrity and limit the impact of bias in our publication, Ledger asks authors, reviewers, and our own editors to follow the guidance below.

  1. Authors should state any conflict of interest as defined in §4 and §5. The statement will be published alongside the manuscript. If no conflict of interest is disclosed, a statement of no conflict will be published alongside the manuscript. Lead authors are responsible for obtaining and stating conflicts of interest for all co-authors.

  2. Reviewers should decline to review manuscripts if they believe they have any conflict of interest as defined in §4.

  3. Editors should decline to process manuscripts if they believe they have any conflict of interest as defined in §4.

  4. Ledger understands conflict of interest to mean any financial interests or financial or non-financial connections, direct or indirect (e.g., through spouse, business partners etc.), or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the published work.

  5. The following is a non-exhaustive list of conflict of interest situations relevant to authors:
    • a. The work is commissioned ("work for hire");
    • b. The work is the result of consulting, expert contribution, or other ad-hoc employment performed by the author(s);
    • c. The author(s) or associated department(s) or organization(s) has/-ve received financial or in-kind support (e.g., datasets) that materially impacted the work;
    • d. The author(s) hold(s) or has/-ve held in the last 3 years any paid or unpaid positions as officer, director, or member of relevant non-profit organizations (including research centers) or profit-making entities in any organization whose policy positions, goals, or financial interests relate to the article.
    • e. The author(s) hold(s) significant cryptoassets (amount and type of asset will not need to be disclosed).
  1. Editors reserve the right to retract papers that fail to appropriately disclose conflicts of interest at the submission stage, or to retroactively append a relevant statement alongside the manuscript.

 

Policy last updated: 16 February 2022

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