Publishing Code of Ethics

Research and Publication Ethics: When reporting on research that involves human subjects/tissues or animals, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of declaration below:

• Research involving human subjects.
  When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki), revised in 2013. According to point 23 of this declaration, approval from an ethics committee should have been obtained before undertaking the research. At a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ of the article. Data relating to individual participants must be described in detail, but private information identifying participants need not be included unless the identifiable materials are of relevance to the research (for example, photographs of participants’ faces that show a particular symptom). Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

• Research involving animals.

Authors should particularly ensure that their research complies with the commonly-accepted '3Rs':

• Replacement of animals by alternatives wherever possible,

• Reduction in number of animals used, and

• Refinement of experimental conditions and procedures to minimize the harm to animals.

Any experimental work must also have been conducted in accordance with relevant legislation on the use of animals for research. For further guidance authors should refer to the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures.

Manuscripts containing original descriptions of research conducted in experimental animals must contain details of approval by a properly constituted research ethics committee. As a minimum, the project identification code, date of approval and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’.

SJR endorses the ARRIVE guidelines (www.nc3rs.org.uk/ARRIVE) for reporting experiments using live animals. Authors and reviewers can use the ARRIVE guidelines as a checklist, which can be found at https://arriveguidelines.org/resources/questionnaire