Conflict of Interest Policy

EnJourMe (English Journal of Merdeka): Culture, Language, and Teaching of English is committed to ensuring objectivity, transparency, and integrity in all published research. To maintain public trust in the scholarly publishing process, EnJourMe requires all authors, peer reviewers, and editorial board members to declare any potential conflicts of interest that could inappropriately influence or bias the evaluation, peer review, or publication of a manuscript.

1. What is a Conflict of Interest?

A conflict of interest (also known as a competing interest) occurs when financial, personal, professional, or institutional relationships could compromise an individual's objectivity, professional judgment, or responsibility during the research, peer-review, or editorial process.

2. Policy for Authors

All authors must disclose any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest that might be perceived as influencing the research findings, analysis, or interpretation.

• Financial Conflicts:

  • Sources of research funding, grants, sponsorships, employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership, or patent rights related to the work.

• Non-Financial Conflicts:

  • Personal or professional relationships, academic competition, institutional affiliations, or strong personal beliefs that may bias the work.

• Disclosure Statement:

  • Authors must include an explicit Conflict of Interest Statement in their manuscript (typically before the reference section).

  • If no conflict exists:

    "The author(s) declare no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper."

  • If a conflict exists:

    "Author [Name] has received research grant funding from [Organization/Sponsor]. The other authors declare no conflict of interest."

3. Policy for Peer Reviewers

Peer reviewers play a crucial role in maintaining academic standards and must act impartially.

• Reviewers must notify the Editor-in-Chief and decline to review a manuscript if they have a known conflict of interest, including:

  • Recent collaboration or co-authorship with any of the manuscript’s authors.

  • Direct financial, commercial, or institutional interest in the research outcomes.

  • Personal, institutional, or competitive rivalries with the authors.

• Confidential information, data, or ideas obtained through peer review must not be used for personal or competitive advantage.

4. Policy for Editors

Editorial decisions must be based solely on the academic merit, original contribution, methodology, and scope of the manuscript.

• Editors and Editorial Board members must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts authored by themselves, family members, close colleagues, or current research collaborators.

• In such cases, the manuscript will be delegated to an independent member of the Editorial Board who has no conflict of interest to manage the peer-review and final decision process.

• Submissions from members of the Editorial Board will be processed through an independent peer-review workflow to ensure complete editorial fairness.

5. Reporting and Contact

If authors, reviewers, or readers suspect an undisclosed conflict of interest, they should report it to the Editorial Office at [email protected] with the subject line: "Conflict of Interest Inquiry - [Manuscript ID / Title]".