Conflicts of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when an interest or a relationship could reasonably be seen to influence a judgement made about a manuscript. The test is how it appears to an informed reader, not whether a decision was in fact changed. Declaring an interest is not an admission of wrongdoing: a declared interest rarely prevents publication or review, while an undeclared one damages the record and the people involved.

This policy applies to authors, reviewers, editors, Editorial Board members and the publisher. It follows the COPE Code of Conduct (2026) and COPE Core Practices. Related pages: Publication Ethics, Peer Review Process, Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern.

What counts as a conflict of interest

Non-financial interests are declared on the same terms as financial ones. An interest held by a spouse, partner or dependent child is treated as an interest of the person concerned.

The disclosure window

Declare every relationship active in the 36 months before submission, and anything ongoing or anticipated — a patent application in preparation, funding under negotiation, an appointment agreed but not yet started. If you are unsure whether an interest is material, declare it: the handling editor decides.

Authors

• A conflict-of-interest declaration is required with every submission. It covers all authors, each responsible for the accuracy of their own entry.
• A conflict-of-interest statement appears in every published article. Where there is nothing to declare, the article carries the sentence: "The authors declare no competing interests."
• Funding is declared separately, with each funder named and the grant number given. State the role of the funder in the design of the study, in the collection and analysis of data, in the preparation of the manuscript and in the decision to publish — or state that the funder had no such role.
• An interest that arises or changes while the manuscript is under consideration is reported to the editorial office without delay.

What must be declared: worked examples

• An author is employed by, or consults for, the company that makes the hardware or the model evaluated in the study.
• An author holds or has applied for a patent covering the method described in the manuscript.
• An author owns shares or options in a company whose product the manuscript benchmarks against a competitor.
• The work was funded by a grant, an industrial contract or a compute donation, including donated cloud credits or accelerator time.
• An author sits on the advisory board of an organisation with a stated position on the question studied.
• An author received a speaker fee or travel support from a party with an interest in the result.

Reviewers

Review is double-blind, so a reviewer is not told who the authors are. A reviewer who nevertheless identifies an author — from a preprint, a talk, or the manuscript itself — applies the rules below from that point.

Decline the invitation where any of the following applies:

• co-authorship or another research collaboration with an author within the last three years;
• employment at the same institution or department as an author;
• a competing manuscript, grant application or product under development on the same question;
• a personal relationship with an author, including family and current or recent supervision;
• a financial interest in the outcome of the assessment.

Anything short of these that the editors should weigh — an older collaboration, a public position on the question, a previous review of the same manuscript elsewhere — is disclosed to the handling editor, who decides whether the review proceeds. Accepting an invitation confirms that no undeclared conflict exists.

Editors

An editor recuses themselves from any manuscript in which they have a conflict, including manuscripts from their own institution, from recent co-authors and from their current or former students. The manuscript is reassigned to an editor with no involvement in the work. A recused editor has no access to the manuscript file, the reviewer identities or the correspondence, and takes no part in the discussion of the decision.

Submissions by editors and Editorial Board members

Editors and Editorial Board members may submit to the journal. Such a manuscript is assigned to an uninvolved editor who decides independently; the submitting editor is excluded from the file and from every stage of the process. Where the submitting editor is the Editor-in-Chief, a Deputy Editor with no conflict takes the final decision. The published article records that the manuscript was handled under this rule.

The publisher

Qazaq AI Research University funds the journal. The publisher has no role in the assessment of individual manuscripts, does not see manuscripts under review and does not influence decisions. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the final decision on every manuscript.

Conflicts discovered after publication

A conflict that comes to light after publication is assessed by an editor with no involvement in the original decision. The authors are asked to respond. Where the omission is material — where a reader's assessment of the findings could reasonably change had the interest been known — the journal publishes a correction that adds the missing declaration, or an expression of concern where the matter cannot be resolved. Where the undisclosed interest goes to the reliability of the findings, the article is retracted. The procedure, the timescale and the form of each notice are set out in Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern.

Report a suspected undeclared interest in writing to journal@qairu.edu.kz, with the article title or DOI and a description of the interest.

Effective date: 2026-09-01 · Version: 1.0 · Questions: journal@qairu.edu.kz