Managing Conflict of Interest Declarations

A conflict of interest exists when a juror's relationship with an artist could colour their scoring: a friend, a former student, a studio mate, someone whose work they own. The Conflicts tab (Admin → Jurying, then open your call) is where you see every declared conflict, record one yourself, and remove one that was declared in error. This guide covers what a conflict does to the review, how to record one, and the cases Crafted Call handles without being asked.

What a conflict does

Once a conflict exists between a juror and an artist for this call, that artist's submissions leave that juror's review queue. The juror cannot open them, score them, or read notes on them.

Their progress adjusts to match. A conflicted entry is not counted as work they owe, so a juror with three declared conflicts still reaches complete without scoring those three. Nothing in the progress figures suggests they are behind.

The remaining jurors score the work normally. Artists are never told that a conflict was declared or by whom.

Review declared conflicts

The Conflicts tab is headed Conflicts of Interest and shows how many conflicts have been declared and by how many jurors. Each row lists the Juror, the Artist, the Reason, who declared it, and the date.

The Declared By column separates the two sources. Self-declared means the juror recorded it themselves. Admin followed by a name means a member of your team recorded it for them.

Watch the pattern, not just the count. In a tight community a juror declaring conflicts on a tenth of the pool may be entirely honest. The same juror declaring conflicts across most of a category is worth a conversation about whether they are the right panelist for this call.

Record a conflict for a juror

Click Flag Conflict. In the Flag Conflict of Interest dialog, use Select Juror, then Search for Artist, and add a Reason (optional). Click Flag Conflict to save. The dialog states the effect plainly: the artist's submissions will be hidden from the juror's review queue.

Record one yourself when:

The call is blind. Jurors cannot search for an artist they cannot see, so they contact you and you record it here. See Blind Jurying and Automatic Redaction.
You know about a relationship the juror has not thought to mention.
A juror tells you about a conflict by email rather than in the app.

Remove a conflict

Use the remove control on the row. The Remove Conflict of Interest confirmation warns that the juror will be able to review the artist's submissions again, and the change is recorded on the Audit tab.

Remove a conflict only when it was recorded in error, for example the wrong artist was picked from the search. Removing a genuine conflict after scoring has started puts the juror back in front of work they should not judge.

Conflicts you do not have to declare

Two protections apply whether or not anyone declares anything.

A juror can never score their own work. If a juror has submitted to this call, any attempt to score their own entry is refused with a message telling them it is a conflict of interest with the artist. This holds even with no declaration on file.

You are warned before you seat one. Invite someone who has already submitted to the call and a Conflict of interest dialog appears, naming how many works they submitted and stating that they will not be able to score their own work. You can continue with Add anyway, which is the right choice when a practising artist is also a respected panelist. Their own entries stay out of their queue either way.

Keeping the record

Every conflict recorded, removed, or flagged on a juror's behalf is written to the Audit tab along with juror changes, round transitions and decisions. That trail is what you produce when a rejected artist asks how the panel was managed, or when a funder asks for evidence of a fair process. It cannot be edited.

Two habits make that record worth having:

Write a real Reason. "Former colleague at the arts council" answers a question a year from now. An empty field does not.
Record conflicts before scoring opens where you can. A conflict declared after a juror has already scored the work does not retract the score they gave.