A conflict of interest (COI) disclosure statement is the short, formal paragraph that appears in a published manuscript — usually near the acknowledgments, before the references, or in a dedicated ‘Declarations’ section — stating whether any author has a relationship or activity that could be perceived to influence the work. Every ICMJE-aligned journal requires one, whether the answer is ‘nothing to declare’ or a list of specific relationships. This guide gives annotated, ready-to-adapt statement templates for both cases, aligned to ICMJE’s disclosure conventions, plus the mechanics of how the statement relates to the disclosure form authors actually complete.
This is a companion to two related CASRAI pages that cover the surrounding concepts rather than the statement text itself: Conflict of Interest Disclosure in Scholarly Publication covers what counts as a conflict and when disclosure is required, and Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form covers institutional and federally-regulated (FCOI) disclosure forms, which are a different document from a manuscript’s published statement. This page is specifically about the wording that ends up in the published article.
The ‘no conflict’ statement — the most common case
When no author has anything to disclose, journals expect a short, unambiguous statement rather than silence — omitting the section entirely is itself a compliance gap most journals will flag at submission. Common accepted phrasings, all functionally equivalent:
- “The authors declare no conflict of interest.”
- “The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.”
- “The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.”
- “All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form and declare no conflicts of interest.”
Annotated example (single author, no funding-related conflict):
“Conflict of Interest Statement: The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.”
This phrasing — common in life-sciences and social-science journals — explicitly scopes the disclosure to commercial/financial relationships, which is narrower than ICMJE’s own definition (see below). If your target journal follows ICMJE’s expanded categories, prefer wording that doesn’t artificially narrow the scope, e.g. drop “commercial or financial” and just say “any relationships.”
Annotated example (multi-author, all clear):
“Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form. The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.”
This two-sentence pattern is the most defensible for multi-author papers: it confirms the procedural step (the form was actually completed by everyone) separately from the substantive result (nothing to disclose), which is what most ICMJE member and ICMJE-following journals expect to see distinguished.
The ‘has a conflict’ statement — disclosing specific relationships
When one or more authors do have something to disclose, the statement should name the author (by initials, consistent with how authors are identified elsewhere in the manuscript), the nature of the relationship, and — where relevant — the entity involved. Vague language (“some authors have relationships with industry”) is not acceptable to ICMJE-aligned journals; specificity is the point of the exercise.
Annotated example (employment/equity):
“Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form. J.S. and A.T. are current employees and shareholders of [Company]. The remaining authors declare no conflicts of interest.”
Note the pattern: name the specific authors and the specific relationship type, then explicitly clear everyone else — don’t leave the reader to infer who among the full author list is unaffected.
Annotated example (consulting/honoraria, non-exclusive to the study):
“R.K. has received consulting fees from [Company A] and speaker honoraria from [Company B], unrelated to the current study. No other conflicts are declared.”
“Unrelated to the current study” is a legitimate and common qualifier — ICMJE’s disclosure form does not restrict authors to only study-relevant relationships; it asks for the past 36 months’ relevant activities regardless of direct connection to the submitted work, and the published statement should reflect that rather than pre-filtering for relevance on the author’s own judgment.
Annotated example (funding-source disclosure, separate from author-level COI):
“This study was funded by [Funder]; the funder had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or the decision to submit for publication.”
Funding disclosure and personal/author-level conflict-of-interest disclosure are frequently combined into one ‘Declarations’ section but are conceptually distinct — a funding statement establishes whether the sponsor influenced the work; an author-COI statement establishes whether an individual author has a personal stake. Many journals require both regardless of whether either is ‘clean.’
What the statement is built from: the ICMJE Disclosure Form
The published statement is a condensed summary of a longer, structured document authors complete before or at submission: ICMJE’s standardized Disclosure of Interest Form. ICMJE member journals require it, and ICMJE actively encourages non-member journals to adopt it too. The form was retitled from a “conflict of interest” form to a “disclosure of interest” form in 2021 — a deliberate shift away from the word “conflict,” which ICMJE judged carried an unhelpful negative connotation, toward a broader, more neutral “relationships and activities” framing that authors report regardless of whether they personally judge them to be conflicting.
The form (and, by extension, the categories a complete published statement should be able to answer) covers two broad classes, per ICMJE’s own recommendations:
- Financial relationships — employment, consultancies, stock or stock options, honoraria, patents (planned, pending, or issued), and paid expert testimony. ICMJE describes these as “most easily identifiable” and “most often judged to represent potential conflicts.”
- Non-financial interests — personal relationships, professional rivalries, academic competition, and strongly held intellectual or advocacy positions relevant to the work. ICMJE’s rationale: “perceptions of conflict may erode trust in science as much as actual conflicts,” so the disclosure net is intentionally wider than money alone.
For the difference between financial and non-financial categories in more depth, and how a journal decides what to do with a disclosed conflict once it has one, see Conflict of Interest Disclosure in Scholarly Publication. For the distinct, form-level document (as opposed to statement wording) — including how it differs from an employer’s or funder’s own institutional COI form — see Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form.
Placement and section labeling
Journals vary in exactly where the statement sits and what they call the section, but the common conventions are:
- Section heading: “Conflict of Interest”, “Conflicts of Interest”, “Competing Interests”, or “Declaration of Interest” (Elsevier’s own preferred label) — check your target journal’s author guidelines rather than assuming; the label is not interchangeable in every submission system, some of which validate against a fixed heading.
- Location: typically after the main text and acknowledgments, before or alongside funding statements and data-availability statements, and before the reference list.
- Order relative to other declarations: many journals now bundle COI, funding, author contributions (see CRediT author statement samples for that adjacent declaration), ethics approval, and data availability into a single “Declarations” block with subheadings — increasingly the norm for journals that have adopted publisher-wide declaration templates.
Common mistakes
- Omitting the section when there’s nothing to disclose. “No conflict” still requires an affirmative statement, not silence — most submission systems now make the field mandatory precisely because reviewers historically couldn’t distinguish “nothing to disclose” from “the authors forgot.”
- Vague collective language when a conflict exists. “Some of the authors have received funding from industry” fails ICMJE’s standard — name the author(s) and the specific relationship.
- Confusing the manuscript statement with an institutional or federal FCOI form. A clean journal disclosure statement does not substitute for required disclosures to your institution or federal sponsor (see NIH Financial Conflict of Interest Policy for the federally regulated version) — they serve different bodies and different rules, and one being current does not make the other current.
- Narrowing the scope to “financial” only when the target journal follows ICMJE’s full definition, which also covers non-financial interests such as personal relationships and intellectual advocacy positions.
- Reusing a co-author’s boilerplate statement without individually verifying it — each author is individually responsible for the accuracy of their own disclosure; a single collective statement is only accurate if every named author actually reviewed and confirmed it, not just the corresponding author.
Frequently asked questions
Is “the authors declare no conflict of interest” acceptable wording on its own?
Yes — it is one of the most commonly used and accepted phrasings across journals for the no-conflict case. Some journals prefer a fuller version (see the multi-sentence examples above) or have their own required exact wording specified in author instructions, so check the target journal’s guidelines before defaulting to the short form.
Do I need a conflict of interest statement if my study had no external funding?
Yes. Funding source and author-level conflict of interest are separate questions. An unfunded study can still involve an author with a relevant employment relationship, consultancy, or equity stake, and the COI statement addresses that regardless of funding status.
Who decides what counts as a conflict worth disclosing?
ICMJE’s position is that authors should err toward disclosure — the disclosure form is deliberately broad so that the judgment of “is this relevant” shifts from the individual author to the editor and readers, who can weigh a disclosed relationship in context. See Conflict of Interest (COI) in Research and Types of Conflict of Interest for the full taxonomy (actual, potential, perceived, financial, personal, institutional).
Does the statement need to name a dollar amount or equity percentage?
Generally no in the published statement itself — that level of detail typically lives in the completed disclosure form submitted to the editor, not the condensed published paragraph. Some journals or funders (e.g. certain NIH-funded contexts) do require more specificity; check target-specific instructions rather than assuming the general convention applies.
How is this different from a CRediT author contribution statement?
A CRediT statement discloses who did what (conceptualization, methodology, writing, etc.); a conflict of interest statement discloses relationships that could bias the work. They’re both standard ‘Declarations’ but answer entirely different questions — see CRediT Author Statement Samples and CRediT vs ICMJE authorship for how the two frameworks relate.
This page provides general guidance and worked example wording aligned to ICMJE’s disclosure conventions. It is not a substitute for your target journal’s specific author instructions, which take precedence, or for your institution’s own conflict of interest policy.
