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\lhead{\sc IACR Policy on Conflicts of Interest}
\rhead{\sc \lastupdate}

\title{\bf IACR Policy on Conflicts of Interest}
\author{\mbox{ }}

\date{\lastupdate
 \footnote{The most recent version of this document
    can be obtained from \protect\url{https://www.iacr.org/docs/}.\newline
  Editors of this document: C. Cachin and P. Rogaway (2017).}}


\begin{document}

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\maketitle

\section{Purpose}

A \emph{conflict of interest (COI)} is a situation in which a person is
involved in multiple interests, one of which could affect the judgment of
that individual.
%
In the context of scientific
reviewing on behalf of the IACR, a COI exists when particular
relationships between reviewers and authors, or their respective
institutions, may taint a reviewer's decision making, or are likely to be
perceived by others as doing so.  COIs can induce undesirable biases,
distorting program-committee decisions and damaging community perception of
the fairness of the review process.

The purpose of having an IACR Policy on COIs is to specify clear guidelines
for dealing with the COIs that routinely arise in the peer-review process
for IACR publications.  The policy aims to reduce the likelihood of
inappropriately biased judgments while simultaneously minimizing the loss
of well-qualified reviewers.  Authors, reviewers, editors, and program
chairs in the context of IACR's operations should adhere to the highest of
ethical standards when dealing with COIs.  The IACR requires all involved
parties to pay attention to COIs, to be transparent about potential COIs,
and to be open about how they deal with them.

Bias, including unconscious and unintentional bias, is an age-old problem
in scientific research. There is no simple or universal solution.  COIs are
routine, complex, and edge cases certainly occur.  The integrity of
reviewing is maximized when all parties take COIs seriously, disclose them,
discuss them, and recognize their complexity.



\section{Policy}

In this document \textit{reviewer} refers to any person who evaluates a
submission with respect to its suitability for publication in an IACR
venue.  Reviewers include program committee members for conference
publications, editorial board members for journal publications
(\textit{Journal of Cryptology}) and journal-conference hybrid publications
(\textit{ToSC} and \textit{TCHES}), sub-reviewers, referees for journal
publications, and individuals doing ad hoc reviews for a program chair or
editor.

We say that a reviewer has an \textit{automatic COI} with an author
\begin{enumerate}
\item if one is or was the thesis advisor to the other, no matter how long ago;

\vspace{-1.5ex}
\item if they shared an institutional affiliation within the prior two years;

\vspace{-1.5ex}
\item if they published two or more jointly authored works in the last
  three years; or

\vspace{-1.5ex}
\item if they are immediate family members.
\end{enumerate}
A reviewer has an automatic COI with a submission if he or she 
has an automatic COI with any of its authors. Additionally, a reviewer 
has an automatic COI with a submission if the reviewer is authoring a 
paper (in submission or in preparation) whose content substantially 
overlaps that of the submission.

Clarifying some of the language used above, \textit{thesis advisor} (also
sometimes called \textit{supervisor}) refers to a (primary or secondary)
thesis advisor (the reviewer was advisor or advisee of an author). It does
not include members of a dissertation committee that were not a student's
advisor.  \textit{Thesis} includes any doctoral thesis as well as graduate 
theses which have a substantial novel research component (which may include 
Master's, \textit{Diplom}, etc.), supervision of which constitute an 
automatic COI.  For undergraduate theses and other types of non-research 
graduate projects, it may or may not raise to the level of a COI; for this 
case the authors and reviewers must disclose the situation to the chairs or 
editor who will decide if it should be treated as a COI.
\textit{Sharing an institutional affiliation} means working at
the same location/campus of the same company/university.  It does not
include separate universities of the same system nor distant locations of
the same company.  The \emph{date} relevant for a paper in submission is
the date when it was submitted.  \textit{Jointly authored work} refers to
jointly authored papers and books, whether formally published or just
posted online, resulting from collaboration on a scientific problem.  It
usually does not include joint editorial functions, like a jointly edited
proceedings volume.  For online publication, the first posting (not
revisions) is the relevant date. Multiple versions of a paper (conference,
ePrint, journal) count as a single paper. \emph{Immediate family
members} include at least 
parents, children, siblings, spouse or significant other.

COIs are not restricted to automatic ones, others being possible. COIs
beyond automatic COIs could involve financial, intellectual, or
personal interests.  Examples include closely related technical work,
cooperation in the form of joint projects or grant applications,
business relationships, close personal friendships, instances of
personal enmity. Full transparency is of utmost importance, authors
and reviewers must disclose to the chairs or editor any circumstances that
they think may create bias, even if it does not raise to the level of a
COI. The editor or program chair will decide if such circumstances
should be treated as a COI. PC chairs are encouraged to ask for a
\emph{conflict statement} in the PC-only part of paper reviews, where
reviewers can disclose such circumstances to the entire committee.
For venues with anonymous submissions, the decision to request or add 
a conflict statement should be balanced against the loss of anonymity.

\section{Implementation}

During the submission process, authors mark all members of the program
committee with whom they have an automatic COI. They should separately
communicate to the program chair or editor any further COIs of
importance. It is the responsibility of all authors of a paper to ensure
the accuracy of all provided COI information.  The definition of COIs
should be summarized on the submission form and possibly in the Call for
Papers. Sample language for this is provided in Section~5.

During the review process, program committee members mark all those
submissions as conflicted with which they know themselves to have an
automatic COI. They should separately
communicate to the program chair or editor any further COIs of importance.

When a program committee member has an automatic COI with a paper, he or
she may not see the paper or its reviews, comment on it, or vote to select
it for any awards.  In case of a physical program committee meeting, the
individual must leave the room when the paper is discussed.

For COIs of importance, the program chair or editor decides whether to
treat it in the same way as an automatic COI or whether to relax some of
the restrictions.  In such cases it is particularly important to be
transparent about the potential COI to the involved parties.

While sub-reviews should not be requested from a party with a known COI,
because all IACR general conferences and most IACR area conferences use
anonymous submissions, a sub-reviewer may end up reviewing a paper with
which he or she has a COI. If the reviewer does not know of the COI at the
time of the review, this is not a problem. Posting papers online can have
the unintended consequence of causing potential sub-reviewers to acquire a
known COI. A prospective reviewer must never be pressed to provide an
opinion or review once he or she expresses concern over a COI.


% Particularly for specialized and technical sub-areas with 
% extensive co-authorship, a program chair may believe that, 
% to get a good assessment of a paper, he or she needs to permit a review from 
% a program committee member or an external reviewer who is 
% conflicted with the paper. In such a case, any resulting review should 
% be clearly marked as a \textit{conflicted review}. A conflicted review 
% must only come from an individual who is conflicted due 
% to recent co-authorship, not other named conditions. 
% Conflicted reviews should be used only in exceptional circumstances, 
% their number and rationale disclosed in the program chairs' confidential 
% report to the IACR Board.

 


\section{Scope}

All IACR General Conferences must follow this policy. 
The \textit{Journal of Cryptology} will likewise do so. 
Other IACR-sponsored venues are encouraged to do so. 
If any IACR venue (e.g., an IACR Area Conference) 
chooses to follow an alternative COI policy, that policy 
must be documented publicly and approved by the relevant steering committee. 


\section{Sample language}

The following is an example of language that might be used in a
call for paper or an online submission form:

\begin{quote}
  \textbf{Conflicts of Interest:} Authors, program committee members, and
  reviewers must follow the \emph{IACR Policy on Conflicts of
    Interest}, available from \url{https://www.iacr.org/docs/}.

  In particular, the authors of each submission are asked during the
  submission process to identify all members of the Program Committee who
  have an automatic conflict of interest (COI) with the submission.  A
  reviewer and an author have an automatic COI if one was the thesis
  advisor/supervisor to the other, or if they've shared an institutional
  affiliation within the last two years, or if they've published two or
  more joint authored works within the last three years, or if they are in
  the same family.  Any further COIs of importance should be separately
  disclosed.  It is the responsibility of all authors to ensure correct
  reporting of COI information.  Submissions with incorrect or incomplete
  COI information may be rejected without consideration of their merits.
\end{quote}



\end{document}

