Conflict of Interest

Conflicts of Interest Policy

A conflict of interest (competing interest) arises when a primary professional judgment regarding research findings or manuscript assessment may be influenced, or reasonably perceived to be influenced, by a secondary interest (financial or non-financial).

Provider Jurnal Ilmu Pemerintahan (PROJIP) adheres strictly to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Transparent disclosure allows editors, reviewers, and readers to assess potential biases objectively. Disclosure of an interest does not automatically imply wrongdoing or prevent publication.

  1. Interests to Disclose

Authors, peer reviewers, and editors must disclose any relevant interests that could bear upon the manuscript, particularly within the context of governmental studies, public policy evaluations, and public administration research:

  • Financial Interests: Employment, political appointments, consultancy agreements, expert witness honoraria, commercial stakes, or proprietary interests directly related to the subject matter, public programs, or agencies examined.
  • Institutional & Sponsor Affiliations: Research grants, institutional advocacy commitments, contractual obligations to government bodies or NGOs, or direct policy stakeholder involvement that could affect data reporting or analytical neutrality.
  • Personal & Academic Ties: Close personal ties, formal supervisory relations (e.g., primary thesis advisor and recent graduate), close recent co-authorship (within the last three years), or direct administrative rivalries.
  • Journal Affiliations: Current editorial appointments or roles within Universitas Ichsan Gorontalo that require firewalled, independent peer review management.

Ordinary academic debates or divergent methodological approaches in political and administrative science do not constitute conflicts of interest. When in doubt, disclosure to the editorial office is mandatory.

  1. Author Declarations & Funding Statements

Every manuscript submitted to PROJIP must include two separate declarations positioned before the References section:

  1. Conflict of Interest Statement:

Each author must declare any relevant personal, professional, or financial competing interests. If no conflict exists, the manuscript must explicitly include the following standardized statement:

"The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper."

  1. Funding Statement:

Authors must explicitly identify the external funding agencies, institutional grants, or community/government research sponsorships supporting the work, including grant numbers where applicable:

    • Describe the exact role of the funder in study design, empirical data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing, or the decision to submit.
    • If the funder had no such involvement, explicitly state:

"The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."

    • If the research received no dedicated external funding, state:

"This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors."

Note: Funding declarations do not substitute for competing-interest disclosures. To preserve double-blind peer review, author identities and grant identifiers must be omitted from the blinded manuscript file and provided solely within the OJS metadata submission portal.

  1. Editorial Board and Reviewer Safeguards
  • Editors: No editor or editorial board member may participate in handling, assigning reviewers for, or deciding upon their own submitted work, manuscripts from close departmental colleagues at Universitas Ichsan Gorontalo, or submissions from recent close collaborators. All such submissions are assigned to an independent guest or section editor, ensuring complete blindness across the OJS workflow.
  • Reviewers: Invited peer reviewers must formally declare any competing interests before accepting an assignment. Reviewers must immediately decline or recuse themselves if they share an institutional affiliation, have collaborated with the authors within the past three years, or hold an ideological, political, or professional stance that precludes an impartial evaluation.
  1. Late Disclosure & Undeclared Conflicts
  • Disclosed competing interests will be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief to assess whether procedural safeguards (such as assigning alternative reviewers or adding explanatory declarations to the published article) are sufficient.
  • Failure to declare a significant competing interest is treated as an ethical breach and evaluated according to COPE Flowcharts.
  • Unintentional omissions are remedied by issuing a formal Correction (Erratum). Substantive, deliberate concealment that distorts research credibility will be handled under the journal's Allegations of Misconduct Policy and may lead to retraction.

Editorial Inquiries and Reporting

For questions regarding competing interests or to report undeclared conflicts concerning published articles or active submissions, please contact:

  • Address: Kampus Universitas Ichsan Gorontalo, Jl. Drs. Achmad Nadjamudin No 10, Dulalowo Timur, Kota Tengah, Kota Gorontalo, Provinsi Gorontalo, 96115 – Indonesia