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Research Development Review: The NORDP Journal

Ethics Statement

Editors and members of the Editorial Board for Research Development Review: The NORDP Journal are expected to conduct themselves with the highest ethical standards. New editors and Editorial Board members are required to complete a confidentiality agreement that covers their access to information that is confidential, proprietary, or that is or includes intellectual property owned by others. They also complete annual conflict of interest declarations that are reviewed by the Editor(s) in Chief or the NORDP Board of Directors (for the Editor(s) in Chief).

Authors will be required to sign an Authorship and CI form before publication.

Editors are required to disclose any conflicts they may have with the evaluation of a submitted paper and may be required to recuse themselves from decisions about submissions where they have a conflict of interest.

Examples of conflicts of interest that would warrant recusal include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:

• Receipt of funding or compensation from, stocks, or ownership interests in a company or organization affiliated with a particular submission;
• Competing interests within the past five (5) years that might, or might reasonably be perceived to, affect the individual’s professional judgement about the content or the merits of the submission;
• Personal beliefs related to the topic or content of a submission that might interfere with an unbiased publication process;
• A close personal relationship with one or more authors of a submission that could affect their objectivity. Financial competing interests include but are not limited to:
• Awarded, planned, or pending patents, including individual applications or those belonging to the institution to which the editor or board member belongs and from which the individual may benefit;
• Ownership of stocks, shares, stock options, or possession of an ownership interest, even if the stocks or shares are not publicly traded or the company is not publicly held;
• Paid employment or consultancy related to the submission;
• Receiving payment for service as a member of an advisory committee or as an officer or member of the board for any entity engaged in activity related to the subject matter of a particular contribution

Non-financial competing interests include but are not limited to:

• Acting as an expert witness on a topic related to a particular submission;
• Service on a government or other advisory board whose activity is relevant to a particular submission;
• Relationships, whether paid or unpaid, with organizations and funding agencies, including non-governmental organizations, research institutions, or charities that could impact the individual’s ability to be objective about the subject matter of a particular contribution;
• Membership in lobbying or advocacy organizations on matters related to the content of a contribution;
• Writing or consulting for companies whose activities might impact the individual’s ability to be objective about a particular contribution;
• Personal relationships (e.g., friends, spouse/partner, family member, mentor, adversary) that might affect objectivity;
• Personal beliefs (political, religious, ideological, or other) related to the topic of a contribution that might interfere with an unbiased publication process.