Conflicts, Funding, and Editorial Independence
How interests are disclosed and managed, and how funding is kept apart from findings.
All directors, investigators, advisers, reviewers, and staff disclose relevant interests before taking a role, at least annually, and within 30 days of a material change. Study-specific disclosures are required before review or participation.
Disclosures cover employment, ownership, equity, consultancy, honoraria, litigation and expert testimony, regulatory positions, promotion or management roles, intellectual property, publishing interests, family relationships, and other interests relevant to the work.
The chair assigns an independent reviewer to assess each conflict. Where the chair is conflicted, two independent Board members make that assignment. Management actions may include disclosure, independent analysis, restricted data access, removal from recruitment or consent, independent editorial review, or recusal. The affected person does not approve the management plan.
A person who controls a fighter’s licensing, selection, payment, coaching, or medical clearance must not obtain that fighter’s research consent. Research access to commission or clinical records requires the data owner’s authorization and an applicable ethics and legal basis.
Fight Medicine Research Institute may list work authored or published by people connected to the Fight Medicine Research Institute. The relationship must be disclosed on the relevant record. A reviewer independent of the author and publisher approves its selection, description, status labels, and featured placement using the same editorial criteria applied to other work.
Every research agreement must preserve investigator access to the data, independent analysis, and the right to publish findings, including negative and inconclusive results. A sponsor may review material for genuine confidentiality or patent concerns for a defined period of no more than 30 days; the sponsor may not veto findings or impose indefinite delay.
Funding sources and the funder’s role are disclosed with each project and publication. Advertising and sponsorship do not determine editorial selection, findings, or conclusions. Funding arrangements that cannot meet these rules are declined.