The Current Conflict of Interest Landscape and the Potential Role of Information Professionals in Supporting Research Integrity

ABSTRACT

Conflict of interest (COI) is an ongoing topic among many groups, including scientific researchers and authors, academic publishers and editors, readers, and information professionals. As scientific research has become closely aligned with industry, the reporting of relevant financial and non-financial relationships by authors has grown increasingly complicated, and more critical than ever. Health sciences information professionals have an important role to play in supporting researchers as they attempt to navigate the COI landscape, particularly in regard to scholarly publishing. This article explores one library’s journey to provide a comprehensive resource guide and contribute to the COI support efforts at its institution.

KEYWORDS:

• Compliance
• conflict of interest
• COI
• financial disclosure
• health science librarians
• information professionals
• LibGuides
• research integrity
• research transparency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.