Publish — Policies

Authors are responsible for ensuring that the research contained within manuscripts submitted to IntechOpen journals adheres to international and local ethical standards required for that field, including Committee on Publication Ethics(COPE) guidelines.

The authors should be aware of any specific cultural sensitivities, restrictions, or research ethics approvals regarding the research in indigenous communities or any other vulnerable groups.

Authors should provide references to any ethical committees who have reviewed the work within their paper and include permission forms where relevant for sensitive experiments involving animals.

Authors should clearly state in their acknowledgements section any ethical committees who have reviewed the work within their paper and include permission forms granted by these committees where relevant and always in cases of sensitive experiments involving animals.

Human Experimentation

All research involving human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, whether interventional or not, must be in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. This declaration clearly states that approval is required from an author's institutional review board/or other appropriate ethics committee, for the research to be undertaken and then published.

IntechOpen journals require authors whose work includes any human experimentation (as detailed above) to include a statement of ethical approval of all protocols, including the ethics committee that approved the work, date of approval, and project identification code. The statement should also include information about informed consent, written or oral, obtained from all subjects (individuals, parents, or guardians) involved in the study. If the consent was not obtained, the underlying causes should be clearly explained.

The statement should be worded as follows: “All subjects included in this work gave their consent for inclusion before they participated. The work was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the ethics committee of {committee name} on {approval date} with reference {project identification code}.

The journal might ask for further information, including all documentation regarding the obtained consent (written or verbal) and its approval by the international review board or local ethics committee.

Authors of manuscripts that describe human experimentation must also ensure all data and images are anonymised so no individual can be identified. This includes surveys, questionnaires, and social media-related work. Anonymity must be confirmed with all participants, alongside details of data sharing and reuse. All such work should adhere to ICMJE recommendations.

If a submission contains identifying information about the participant, authors must obtain written informed consent from the identifying individual or their parents/guardians (the age of legal adulthood is defined by the national law of the country in which the participants are based). The authors should provide the journal with signed consent if required.

Authors of manuscripts that describe human experimentation must also ensure all data and images are anonymised so no individual can be identified. This includes surveys, questionnaires, and social media-related work. Anonymity must be confirmed with all participants, alongside details of data sharing and reuse. All such work should adhere to ICMJE recommendations ICMJE recommendations.

IntechOpen encourages authors to follow the SAGER guidelines on sex and gender equity in research, where relevant. Authors should use the terms sex and gender carefully, being clear about which their study applies to and/or how work linked with sex (biological attributes) or gender (shaped by societal and cultural environments) is described.

Animal Subjects

Manuscripts that describe experiments on animals (live vertebrates and higher invertebrates) will be assessed by editors to ensure the research benefits outweigh any potential harm caused to the animals. Authors should consider the three R’s when designing their experiments:

• Replace animals with alternatives, where appropriate and possible
• Reduce the number of animals used
• Refine the experiment and conditions used to minimise potential harm

Authors must include details of housing, husbandry, and pain management in their manuscripts for any animal experimentation. They should also adhere to International Association of Veterinary Editors guidelines for the design and analysis of animal studies and ARRIVE guidelines for reporting research on animals.

If required by authors' national legislation, there should be approval from an appropriate ethics committee and a statement about that approval in the manuscript, including the name of the ethics committee, date of approval and project identification code. Authors are responsible for ensuring that all animal research adheres to national and institutional policies and regulations, and that appropriate statements are included in the manuscript to comply with relevant legislation. If authors are unable to obtain ethics approval, they should include a statement to indicate why committee approval did not occur or was not required and be aware that editors and peer reviewers will review the ethics of their work at the point of peer review.

Clinical Reports, Studies and Trials

Authors submitting clinical case reports should adhere to the CARE guidelines when reporting a case and obtain a consent from a patient (or their parents/guardians) required for the publication of the manuscript. Authors should be prepared to share the consent with the journal if requested and must declare they have this information at point of submission.

All reported clinical studies must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki principles.

IntechOpen Journals follow the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) definition of clinical trials as "any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes."

In accordance with the ICMJE guidelines, all clinical trial protocols should be registered in a publicly available registry prior to participant enrollment. The list of compliant registries can be found on the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or ClinicalTrials.gov, as recommended by the ICMJE. The information about the clinical trial registration and all deviations from the original trial protocol should be included in the abstract and methods section of the manuscript.

Clinical trials should be registered prospectively but the retrospective registration is possible under the circumstances detailed in ICMJE guidelines. An informed consent should be obtained from all participants enrolling in the trial.

All clinical trial reports must follow the relevant reporting guidelines such as CONSORT or TREND.

Equity and Bias-Free Communication

IntechOpen encourages authors to follow the SAGER guidelines on sex and gender equity in research, where relevant. Authors should use the terms sex and gender carefully, being clear about which their study applies to and/or how work linked with sex (biological attributes) or gender (shaped by societal and cultural environments) is described.

When communicating research conducted on different groups by ethnicity, race, religion, age, disability, disease, etc. a non-discriminatory and bias-free language should be used. The reasoning and the definitions for such grouping categorization should be provided, including potential research funding requirements. When reporting demographic information in the study, It is advisable to use terms that designate ethnicity instead of race.

Unless essential in reporting the research outcomes, the derogatory descriptions or offensive language should be avoided.

Cell Lines

Authors using cell lines should state the origins of any cell lines used. For established cell lines, the original source must be given and a citation to a publication or commercial reference. Statements should be worded as follows: “The {name of cell line} cell line was obtained from{source and reference}”. If de novo cell lines are used, authors must obtain and describe any relevant ethics committee approval for the use of a new cell line with human provenance.

Authors should use the following statement: “The work was approved by the ethics committee of {committee name} on {approval date} with reference {project identification code}.”

Microarray Experiments

When reporting microarray experiments the authors should follow the MIAME guidelines and ensure that the data behind the experiment is available in a publicly accessible database.

Systematic Reviews

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should follow the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines and be registered on PROSPERO. The registered protocol should be included in the manuscript and PRISMA checklist submitted as a supplementary file to the submitting paper.

Territorial Descriptions

The responsibility of all territorial descriptions, maps, and the affiliations in submitted manuscripts lies with the authors and should follow international conventions and treaties. IntechOpen Ltd. remains neutral with any claims in published manuscripts but may require adaptations of affiliations in order to ensure the reporting consistency across the portfolio.

Policy last updated: 23 January 2023