These instructions apply to Declaration of Interest forms for authors of Cochrane Reviews. If you need to complete a Declaration of Interest for your role within Cochrane please see Declaration of Interest forms: Instructions for other contributors.
Research integrity is very important to Cochrane. We will ask you to declare your interests when you submit your protocol, review or update to Cochrane Central Editorial Service. Within 7 working days of submission, you will receive an email asking you to complete your declaration of interest. Please submit your declaration as soon as you can. If authors do not submit a declaration of interest within 30 days of the request email going out, the manuscript will be removed from our system. If you have technical difficulties completing your form, please follow our Troubleshooting steps below.
Cochrane uses Convey, a not-for-profit Declaration of Interest management system provided by the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) to collect Declarations of Interest. Through Convey, you can securely record and maintain your own financial interests and disclosure history. We recommend reading all the information on this page before starting to complete your form so that you have all the relevant information available.
- Create your Convey account
- Submitting your Declaration of Interest Form
- Reviewing a previously submitted Declaration of Interest form
- Troubleshooting
You will receive an email from AAMC (‘Do_Not_Reply@aamc.org’) asking you to complete a Declaration of Interest form. This email will arrive within 7 working days of your submission. The message will contain a link to the disclosure form for the review. The form is completed electronically. You cannot complete a Declaration of Interest form on someone else's behalf.
To start the process, click on the ‘Start Disclosure for Cochrane’ link provided in the email.
IMPORTANT: Please note that Convey does not use the Cochrane Account login system. If you have not used Convey before, you will need to create an account after clicking the ‘Start Disclosure for Cochrane’ link in the email. Instructions on how to do this are below.
If you already have a free AAMC account, sign in and start your disclosure.
If you already have a free AAMC account, but have forgotten your username or password, see troubleshooting.
If you do not have a free AAMC account, click on ‘Create Account’. Follow the instructions below:
Select Create Account on the Convey login screen.
There are three steps to creating an account. Please complete these as fully as possible.
Step 1. Enter your preferred email address and contact information.
Although entering your middle name is optional, providing this can help if you forget your username and password as Convey use this for authentication.
Step 2. Provide additional information for AAMC.
Step 3. Choose a memorable username and password.
IMPORTANT: Please make a note of your chosen username and password as you will need these for future disclosures. This is different to your Cochrane account login.
On this final screen, you also will be asked to set up some security questions. These will be used if you need to reset your username or password. If you choose to set up these security questions, please make a note of the questions and answers you provide. Questions in this section will be for your own future reference and are not used by AAMC.
Once you have created an account, you will receive a confirmation email from ‘aamc_registration@aamc.org’. Please check your spam email inbox if this does not arrive as expected. Click on the link provided in the confirmation email to verify/activate your account.
When your account is verified, return to the email received from ‘Do_Not_Reply@aamc.org’ and click on the ‘Start Disclosure for Cochrane’ link, login with your AAMC username, and start your disclosure.
Once logged in, you will be guided through the following four-step declaration process.
Submitting your Declaration of Interest form
This form is to declare your financial and non-financial relationships and activities that may be considered conflicts of interest according to Cochrane's COI policy. Please note that you must complete a separate disclosure per review and will be asked to confirm that your disclosure is up to date at several points during the review process.
Over the next three screens, you will be asked to declare relevant activities to this protocol/review/update:
- Enter Interests: During this stage you will be asked to enter all relevant financial interests. If you do not have any financial interests to declare, please click ‘Nothing to Disclose’. Please note that non-financial/other interests and any involvement in studies will be declared at a later stage.
- Additional questions: During this stage you will be asked questions related to specific types of financial interests and asked to declare any relevant non-financial/other interests and any involvement in studies that may be eligible for inclusion in the review.
- Review and send: During this stage you will be able to review your answers and submit your form for the editorial team to assess.
Please note that the form does not need to be completed in one sitting and it is possible to save your answers and come back later. For more detailed step by step instructions on how to complete your disclosure, please click here.
Relationships and activities that need to be declared
You should declare all financial and non-financial relationships and activities relevant to the topic area of the review. For Cochrane Reviews, the relevant timeframe for interests that should be declared is the period beginning 36 months before protocol submission (or review submission, for reviews submitted directly with a prospective protocol registered elsewhere) through to publication of the review. For a review update with no new protocol, the relevant timeframe is the period beginning 36 months prior to update submission, through to publication of the updated review. If you are in doubt about whether to list a particular relationship or activity, please do so.
Financial interests
The CoI policy deems financial interests to be relevant if the payment comes from a commercial organization with a financial interest in the topic of the review. This means that the organization has developed (or is known to be developing), or distributes (anywhere in the world), an intervention or potential comparator related to the topic of the review. This applies even if the payment was made for work or advice that did not relate to the topic of the review.
Non-financial interests
Non-financial relationships and activities that have a direct and obvious connection to the topic of the review should be disclosed. Declarations of non-financial interests will not prevent participation in the creation of Cochrane reviews.
Involvement in clinical studies
Anyone involved in writing a Cochrane Review, should declare whether they have had any direct involvement in the conduct, analysis, and publication of studies that could be included in the specific review.
These screenshots below will help you navigate the process.
Enter Interests
If you have an interest to add, you will first need to search for an entity (eg.organisation or company). If the entity is not listed you can select Add Company or Organization - e.g. Private Practice
Once this is selected, you will then need to specify financial information:
Once this section is complete, you will move on to Additional Questions:
And finally, you will have the chance to review before submission:
Reviewing a previously submitted Declaration of Interest form
If you have previously completed a declaration of interest form in Convey (for Cochrane or any other organization using Convey) the interests that you previously declared will have been saved in your repository. In the ‘Enter interest’ step of the disclosure, your previously declared interests will be listed either under ‘Interests Included In This Disclosure’ or ‘Interests Not Included In This Disclosure’. Please verify that all interests are listed in the correct section and, if any are not, click ‘Include’ or ‘Do Not Include’ as applicable. Relevant financial interests that have not been previously declared in Convey can be added by clicking on ‘Add an Interest’ at the top right of the screen.
If you wish to retract or amend your Declaration for any reason, please contact your editorial team before doing so.
To view your submitted disclosures, when logged in to Convey click on either the ‘History’ tab from the menu bar or on the ‘View All Disclosures’ link on the main page. Identify the disclosure from your history and click on the ‘View’ button to open the disclosure. Please note, that if you use the 'View All Disclosures' link on the main page, you will be able to see the Editorial Manager manuscript number and full title in the list of previous disclosures.
To edit and resubmit your disclosure, click on the link from the original email that was sent to you from ‘Do_Not_Reply@aamc.org’. Please ensure that the editorial manager review number in the email corresponds with the review for which you are completing a declaration of interest form.
If you do not have the original link to your disclosure and you wish to amend your answers, please contact support@cochrane.org.
Troubleshooting
In case you forget username/password
If you forget your username or password, and you do not have security questions, you can reset these on the Convey sign in page.
If you have forgotten your username, you will be prompted to enter the email address you used to sign up to Convey:
If you have forgotten your password, you will be asked to enter your username:
You will need to select the options below from dropdown:
If you encounter a problem when completing your disclosure please contact support@cochrane.org.