The structure of an editorial board of a scholarly, academic journal usually consists of a leading person, an editor in chief (EiC), senior or managing editors, associate editors, and advisory editors. There may also be linguistic editors, statistic editors, and even image or technical editors. All these editors carry responsibilities, for which they are given credit, and thus recognition, as academic acclaim, for being editors (Teixeira da Silva 2013). In this paper, in order to simplify the discussion, the term “editors” will be used broadly to describe any editorial position, independent of rank, although we recognize that there is a chain of command that also reflects a level of responsibility, with the EiC usually being ultimately responsible for all editorial decisions and for what eventually gets published in their journal.

In the past few years, a series of scandals as a result of failed peer review (Teixeira da Silva and Dobránszki 2015), fake peer reviews, false authorship, or other faked aspects of the publishing process (Teixeira da Silva 2017a), as well as a string of retractions—which generally reflect failure (Teixeira da Silva 2016b)—have occurred in academic publishing. To some degree, there is both a crisis of trust in science, not only within academia but also by the public since public (tax payer) funding supports various scientific structures around the world.

According to a white paper published by the Council for Science Editors (CSE), editors, especially of scientific journals, have responsibilities towards authors, peer reviewers, the journal itself, advancement of science, and the general public (Council of Science Editors 2019). The CSE updated that white paper in May of 2018 to add greater details about editors’ responsibilities when dealing with authors’ and their own conflicts of interest (COIs). The Croatian Medical Journal (CMJ 2009) places the entire responsibility for the content of a journal on editors’ shoulders. The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) explains that a COI exists when:

… there is a divergence between an individual’s private interests (competing interests) and his or her responsibilities to scientific and publishing activities such that a reasonable observer might wonder if the individual’s behavior or judgment was motivated by considerations of his or her competing interests. COI in medical publishing affects everyone with a stake in research integrity including journals, research/academic institutions, funding agencies, the popular media, and the public. (World Association of Medical Editors 2009, ¶1)

In a stage of science that appears to be in a state of mistrust (Funk 2017) related to the integrity of the published literature, under-powered analyses, publication selection biases, and fraud (Wicherts 2017), including image manipulation (Teixeira da Silva 2016a), image editors carry new responsibilities. For example, the Journal of Cell Biology discovered that “about 1% of accepted papers had manipulated images that affected their conclusions; another 25% had some sort of manipulation that violated guidelines” (Couzin-Frankel 2016, ¶3 under “A change of plans”). Perceiving this crisis, and in an attempt to deal with public complaints about possible image manipulation in papers published by the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology made Kaoru Sakabe the data integrity manager, formerly the manager of publication issues; then, in April of 2017, it placed a call for three “Technical Image Editors.”Footnote 1 In a bid to shore up trust and create a literature that is based on the quality and integrity of the published literature, Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) fortified their editorial functions and responsibilities, while abandoning the journal impact factor, by committing to post-publication peer review (PPPR) in which possible errors in the published literature would be freshly examined in the light of complaints made by academics or the public (Kullas and Davis 2017). And, at a risk to their own reputation, MCB concluded, based on inappropriate figure manipulations in 6.1 per cent of papers within their own journal, that “as many as 35,000 papers in the literature are candidates for retraction due to inappropriate image duplication” (Bik et al. 2018, p. 1).

Several associations of science editors and scientific journals have updated their COI policies to deal with the challenges listed above. These include disclosing publicly the actual or perceived COIs of the EiC or of other members of the editorial board, which may include financial relationships (including consultancy, honoraria, affiliations, past employment or association, and stock ownership), personal relationships, and non-financial COIs. A non-financial COI can arise when the editors are in situations such as having an unpaid membership in a board, government, or committee, if they have earlier co-authored papers with the author of the paper submitted for review, or if they have worked in institutions where the author works. It can also stem from desires to return favours or seek status and fame (Wiersma et al. 2018). A 2008 PLoS Medicine editorial noted that several of the COI cases brought before the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) involved non-financial COIs (PLoS Medicine2008). Non-financial COIs can be personal, political, academic, ideological, or religious (PLOS Medicine2008; Gallo et al. 2016) and are more difficult to define than financial COIs. A comprehensive definition which includes all forms of COIs in academic publishing is the one used by the Public Library of Science (PLoS) for its journals:

A competing interest is anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication of research or non-research articles submitted to PLOS. Competing interests can be financial or non-financial, professional, or personal. Competing interests can arise in relationship to an institution, organization, or another person. (PLOS One 2019, ¶1, emphasis ours)

The difficulties in identifying and managing non-financial COIs have led to controversy regarding whether they should be managed at all. Wiersma et al. (2018) point out that non-financial COIs such as the potential for attaining status are often even more powerful in influencing research than financial COIs. On the other hand, critics of this increased attention to non-financial COIs claim that focus on non-financial COIs can detract attention from obvious financial COIs (Bero and Grundy 2016). In the context of research, Bero and Grundy believe that intellectual interests of the researcher cannot be separated from the researcher, and that these are essential for rigorous research and healthy scientific debate and should not therefore be perceived as COIs. However, we believe that this does not hold true for editors, as such conflicts, or interests, can bias or influence the publication of research. Our view is supported by the notion that intellectual stand-points can also reflect COIs (Lenzer 2016). It is not helpful that the term COIs be used simply, but erroneously, to describe influencing factors in the publishing process (Amigo and Pascual-García 2017).

An editor has responsibility towards authors, peer reviewers, the journal, and the public at large or the scientific community the journal is aimed at (Teixeira da Silva and Dobránszki 2018). In many cases of COIs in editors, the judgement of the editor can affect the future of the journal itself and, especially in the case of biomedical journals, it can affect peoples’ lives. In an opinion piece in JAMA, McCoy and Emanuel (2017, 1721) stated that

… [t]he notion of a potential conflict of interest reflects the mistaken view that a COI exists only when bias or harm occurs. This way of reasoning confuses a real situation marked by a potential for bias with a potential situation.

Gottlieb and Bressler (2017), in the same edition of JAMA, asked “who watches the watchers?”—noting that editors shape biomedical literature by deciding which articles, commentaries, opinion pieces, reviews, and letters to the editor will be published and when, and that such literature can have an influence on healthcare. Hence the potential of biased decision-making by an editor or his or her COIs should be a matter of concern (Gottlieb and Bressler 2017). Rumsey (1999) noted that editors and reviewers have a duty to maintain the integrity of the publishing process and thus must contend with past biases in literature caused by incomplete reporting, favouritism, failure to consider other explanations of scientific results, failure to report negative or statistically nonsignificant studies, publication of preliminary results that are refuted in later studies, and situations unique to the project funding process. Perceptions of the existence of bias such as a delay in publishing to meet personal needs may, in the long run, affect the journal itself (Rumsey 1999).

Sarigöl et al. (2017) described how prior relationships between an editor and an author can favour faster publication times, suggesting that hidden COIs exist in such relationships. Since publishing is both a stressful and time-consuming process, such unfair treatment in favour of one party (and thus against other parties who do not receive such preferential treatment) can corrupt the publishing process because they are intrinsically biased and unfair. Consequently, given the central importance of editors in the publishing process, as well as in paper selection and decision-making, editors should be expected to display not only their curriculum vitae in its entirety without any selective bias or skewing of the facts (Teixeira da Silva and Tsigaris 2018) but also their COIs.

Given that almost everyone has competing interests and biases and the fact that they often overlap with personal and non-financial COIs makes their management difficult. One method is full disclosure, where authors, reviewers, and editors acknowledge having non-financial interests which might influence their reporting or review, or where there is a possibility that the publication of the paper will either positively or negatively impact their interest (PLoS Medicine Editors 2008). However, disclosure of non-financial COIs is not required by many journals, while financial COIs are, as noted by both Kesselheim et al. (2012) and Bosch et al. (2013).

While Bero and Grundy (2016) believe that recusal can be exclusionary by giving higher priority to interests opposing that of a researcher, so guidelines set by several journals suggest recusal as a means of managing both financial and non-financial COIs (Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences2013). The CSE white paper specifies that a COI exists where editors make decisions on research manuscripts from their department or research collaborators or competitors or address an issue of particular interest to the editor. It suggests that such manuscripts should be delegated to other editors. Elsevier’s Journal of Accounting and Economics hands over decision-making to co-editors who are least conflicted if individual editors are found to have a COI, while manuscripts are also assigned to referees to reduce the potential for COIs (JAE 2017). This appears to be a general rule for all Elsevier journals (table 1). The Croatian Medical Journal has evolved a system of independent editorial review, often handing over the review process to an outside editor so that the risk of bias can be prevented (CMJ 2009). COPE only requires that journals provide the full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors on the journal’s web site as well as contact information for the editorial office (COPE 2011).

Table 1 Conflict of interest (COI) policy for editors, authors and reviewers as indicated by different publishers Full size table

Editors and publishers also have the responsibility, as part of a wider process of ensuring accountability and transparency (COPE 2015; Barbour 2017), to expect of themselves what they expect of others. Barbour stated: “If journals want to remain a trusted source of evidence, editors need to step up and apply to themselves the same standards of transparency that they expect of others” (p. 2). We also propose specific responsibilities, some of which were updated in May 2018 in the CSE white paper:

1) explain how editors were recruited and approved and/or show their academic qualifications for that position of responsibility (Teixeira da Silva and Al-Khatib 2018); move away from author-suggested peer reviewers, which may be biased, fake or carry COIs, to an editorial system in which editors are exclusively responsible for conducting peer review themselves or for finding and recruiting suitably qualified peers (Teixeira da Silva and Al-Khatib 2017); 2) ensure that peer review and manuscript processing is kept to a bare minimum, including desk rejections (Teixeira da Silva and Dobránszki 2017); 3) ensure the correction of the literature when errors are detected during PPPR (Teixeira da Silva 2015a); 4) not create accounts for authors without their explicit permission first (Teixeira da Silva 2016c); 5) correct erroneous literature in their journals. Problems associated with literature that was approved by editors, under their supervision and guidance, also forms part of their responsibilities, and thus the professionalism and competence of editors should also be carefully analysed and there must be due process where editors have failed, including their removal from an editorial board (Dobránszki and Teixeira da Silva 2016); 6) ensure the existence of a scientific arbitration board or other formal body that looks at the lack of disclosures between editors and authors or between advertisers and editors to ensure that the choice of selection of publications is not reflecting a hidden commercial or other COIs (Desai and Shortell 2011).

There is concern about editors who have not respected their responsibilities or who may have COIs but who still maintain an editorial position (Teixeira da Silva 2016d). Editorial failure can also include the abuse by editors of their position to either enhance their own work or profiles or to game the metrics system to enhance the metrics of their journal by suggesting excessive citation of their work or of their journal (Teixeira da Silva 2017b), an issue that was also updated in May 2018 in the CSE white-paper. Finally, there is the issue of compensation for editorial duties that carry considerable responsibility. There is continuous debate related to the lack of financial compensation to academics who serve as peer reviewers and editors, especially for the for-profit publishing industry (Teixeira da Silva and Katavić 2016).