CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

This policy explains how Jurnal Pengabdian Masyarakat Bidang Sains dan Teknologi, abbreviated as ABDIKAN, handles competing interests that could affect the reporting, the evaluation, or the publication of a community service activity. Its purpose is to keep the editorial process transparent, so that readers, authors, and reviewers can trust the work that the journal publishes.

Disclosure is a protective step and is not an accusation. Having an interest does not prevent a manuscript from being published, but hiding one can.

Section 3Authors

Section 4Editors

Section 4Reviewers

Section 5Handling

1What Is a Competing Interest

A competing interest, or conflict of interest, is any relationship, circumstance, or activity that could influence, or could reasonably appear to influence, the way in which an activity is carried out, reported, reviewed, or edited. It is the appearance of influence that matters. An author does not have to be influenced in fact for the interest to be relevant.

2Interests to Disclose

The table gives the main types of interest and some examples. It is not a complete list. When a person is unsure whether an interest is relevant, the person should disclose it.

No.	Type of interest	Examples
1	Financial relationships	Employment, consultancy, shares, patents, or royalties, including a relationship with a company or a provider whose product, equipment, or technology is used or introduced in the activity.
2	Funding and sponsorship	A grant, a sponsorship, or in kind support for the activity, and any involvement of the sponsor in the design of the activity, in the collection or the analysis of data, or in the writing of the manuscript.
3	Personal and professional relationships	A close relationship with an author, a reviewer, an editor, or a leader of the partner, for example a supervisor, a close colleague, a recent coauthor, or a family member.
4	Interest in the subject of the activity	The authors developed, own, or sell the program, the product, or the technology that is introduced to the partner, or they have a personal or business interest in the partner or in the institution where the activity took place.
5	Editorial and journal ties	An author who is an editor or a member of the editorial board of the journal, or whose institution is closely tied to the journal, so that the manuscript needs independent handling.

Ordinary scholarly disagreement is not a disqualifying conflict of interest by itself.

3Duties of Authors

Every author discloses the interests that are relevant to the activity and to the manuscript.
The corresponding author compiles the disclosures into one competing interests statement. When there are no competing interests, the statement says so.
The authors also give a funding statement. It names the funders and the organizations that supported the activity, gives the numbers of grants or contracts, and says whether the funder had any role in the design of the activity, in the collection and the analysis of data, in the decision to publish, or in the writing of the manuscript.
An interest that appears after submission, during the review or the revision, is reported to the editors without delay.

The article template has no separate section for declarations. Both statements are therefore written in the last paragraphs of the Acknowledgements (Ucapan Terima Kasih), which is the last subheading of the Closing section (D. PENUTUP). The subheading is marked as optional in the template, but it is used whenever a statement is needed, even if there is nobody else to thank. Please see Manuscript Preparation.

Statement	Example of the format
Competing interests, none	The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Competing interests, declared	[Initials of the author] is [the relationship, for example an adviser of the company that supplied the equipment]. The other authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Funding	This community service activity was funded by [name of the funder], grant number [number]. The funder had no role in the design of the activity, in the collection and the analysis of data, in the decision to publish, or in the preparation of the manuscript.

These examples show the format only. The text in square brackets must be replaced by the real facts of the activity.

4Duties of Editors and Reviewers

Role	Duty
Editors	Editors disclose the interests that are relevant to a manuscript before they accept the assignment, and they report any later interest without delay. An editor whose impartiality is compromised does not decide on that manuscript. This includes manuscripts that are submitted by an editor or by a member of the editorial board: such a manuscript is handled by an editor who is not involved in it, and the author takes no part in the evaluation or in the decision. Editors also do not use unpublished material from a manuscript in their own work without the written consent of the author.
Reviewers	Reviewers disclose the interests that are relevant to a manuscript before they accept the invitation, and they report any later interest without delay. A reviewer who has a disqualifying conflict declines the invitation or withdraws from the review. Reviewers also keep the information that they obtain through the review confidential and do not use it for personal advantage. Please see the Peer Review Process.

Role

Duty

Editors

Editors disclose the interests that are relevant to a manuscript before they accept the assignment, and they report any later interest without delay. An editor whose impartiality is compromised does not decide on that manuscript. This includes manuscripts that are submitted by an editor or by a member of the editorial board: such a manuscript is handled by an editor who is not involved in it, and the author takes no part in the evaluation or in the decision. Editors also do not use unpublished material from a manuscript in their own work without the written consent of the author.

Reviewers

Reviewers disclose the interests that are relevant to a manuscript before they accept the invitation, and they report any later interest without delay. A reviewer who has a disqualifying conflict declines the invitation or withdraws from the review. Reviewers also keep the information that they obtain through the review confidential and do not use it for personal advantage. Please see the Peer Review Process.

5Assessment and Handling of Disclosures

When an interest is declared, an editor who is not affected by it assesses how relevant it is and how it could influence the work. Depending on the result, the editors may do one of the following.

No.	Possible outcome
1	Accept the disclosure and publish it together with the article.
2	Ask for an independent assessment of the manuscript or of the part that is affected.
3	Replace the editor or the reviewer who has the interest, and assign the task to someone else.

Missing, incomplete, inaccurate, or late disclosures. These are considered in their context. When the matter is material, it is handled under the Publication Ethics, Allegations of Misconduct, and Correction and Retraction policies. If an interest is found after publication, a correction may be published.

6Scope of This Policy

This policy covers interests that are related to the activity and to the research. Author fees are described on the Author Fees page, and the ownership and the management of the journal are described on the Ownership and Management page. As stated in the Publication Ethics, commercial considerations do not influence editorial decisions.