Another potential source of bias, and thus threat to research quality and integrity, is conflict of interest: a situation when you have a relationship (economic or non-financial) that could influence your research. Evidence shows that conflicts of interest such as commercial sponsorship or another potential for financial gain may lead to systematic biases in research studies. The research quality could be unduly influenced also by non-financial interests (e.g., career advancement or promotion, academic competition or rivalry etc.). It is important to remember that a conflict of interest is a situation, not necessarily a misconduct. There are ethical ways of handling possible conflict of interest as disclosure of the financial interest. Some of these issues are explained in the following short video.

 

 

If you read attentively any of JARS in learning activity 3.4, you probably noticed that acknowledging any possible conflicts of interest is a standard requirement for a research report. So, in your thesis, you might include a statement like the following: "The author states no conflict of interest" or declare the possible conflict, if any.