A conflict of interest (competing interest) arises when financial, personal, political, academic, or institutional relationships could inappropriately influence�or be perceived to influence�professional judgment regarding the design, conduct, interpretation, or peer review of a study.

1. Author Disclosure Obligations

• All authors must disclose any financial or non-financial competing interests at the time of submission (including corporate PR consultancies, political campaign affiliations, media ownership ties, or research grants).
• Every published article includes a dedicated declaration at the end of the manuscript (e.g., "Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that they have no competing financial or personal interests that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.").
• All funding sources and grant numbers must be explicitly stated in the Acknowledgments / Funding section.

2. Reviewer & Editor Recusal

• Reviewers must decline to review any manuscript if they recognize the author's work, belong to the same department/institution, have co-authored with the author within the past 3 years, or hold a direct ideological/personal conflict.
• Editors who submit manuscripts to JCCS have their submissions handled entirely by an independent Section Editor in a strictly blinded workflow; the submitting Editor has zero access to the review records.