Research ethics
This page sets out the specific ethical, approval, and reporting requirements for research submitted to World J Exp Biosci. It It should be read together with the Journal's Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement and Guidelines for Authors, and reflects internationally recognized standards for ethical research reporting and scholarly publishing, including guidance from COPE, ICMJE, and other relevant international standards. This policy applies to research involving human participants, human-derived materials, animals, plants, biological materials, protected datasets, and other regulated resources.
- Research Involving Human Subjects
All research involving human subjects, human material, tissues, or data must be conducted following the Declaration of Helsinki, WMA. Prospective approval from an appropriate institutional review board (IRB) or ethics committee is required before research begins. As a minimum, the manuscript must state the name of the ethics committee/IRB, the approval number or ID, and the date of approval, in a section titled “Institutional Review Board Statement.”
Example: “All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX.”
For non-interventional studies (e.g., surveys and questionnaires research), participants must be informed whether anonymity is assured, why the research is being conducted, how their data will be used, and of any associated risks; prior ethics approval is still required. Where approval is not required under applicable national or institutional rules, authors must provide a documented exemption from the relevant ethics committee, or cite the applicable legislation, and explain why approval was not needed, stated in the “Institutional Review Board Statement” section.
Manuscripts involving vulnerable groups, or that categorise participants by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, or disease, may be subject to additional editorial scrutiny; authors may be asked to provide documentary evidence (e.g., blank consent forms) and must state the rationale for any such categorisation in the article.
Requirements for written informed consent to publish identifiable details or images are set out in Section 11 (Consent for Publication) of the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement and the Consent for Publication section of the Guidelines for Authors.
2. Research Involving Animals
Authors must ensure their research complies with the 3Rs: i, Replacement of animals with alternatives wherever possible; ii, Reduction in the number of animals used; and iii, Refinement of procedures to minimize harm. Manuscripts must include housing, husbandry, and pain-management details.
The Journal endorses the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting experiments involving live animals; authors and reviewers should use the ARRIVE Compliance Questionnaire as a checklist. As set out in Section 10.2 of the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement, animal studies must be approved by an appropriate ethics review committee under the UK Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, EU Directive 2010/63/EU, or the NRC Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, as applicable, with the approval number/ID and ethics committee name stated.
Where no animal ethics committee is available to review a study, authors should be aware that the ethics of the research will be evaluated by reviewers and editors and must provide a written justification from an ethical perspective, using the same framework applied by ethics committees; this may be requested even where formal approval was obtained.
Required forms: Animal Welfare Statement and Ethical animal & human statement
3. Research Involving Plants
Studies on plants must comply with institutional and national/international regulation, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), with relevant permissions or licences stated, as set out in Section 10.3 of the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.
4. Research involving Cell Lines
Methods sections must state the origin of any cell lines used. For established lines, provenance must be given with a reference to a published paper or commercial source. For previously unpublished, de novo cell lines, including those obtained from another laboratory, authors must provide details of IRB/ethics committee approval and, where the line is of human origin, confirmation of written informed consent.
5. Clinical Trails
As set out in the Clinical trials section of the Guidelines for Authors, the Journal follows the ICMJE guidelines for clinical trial registration, requiring registration in a public trials registry (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov, the EU Clinical Trials Register, or a registry listed by the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform) at or before enrolment of the first participant. Purely observational studies do not require registration; where a study protocol was published before enrolment began, registration may be waived if the protocol is correctly cited.
A completed CONSORT 2010 checklist and flow diagram is required for manuscripts reporting randomized trials.
6. Sex and Gender Research
Consistent with Section 10.1 of the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement, authors are encouraged to follow the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines, using the terms sex (biological attribute) and gender (social/cultural attribute) precisely, indicating in the title and/or abstract which sex(es) the study applies to, and reporting disaggregated data by sex/gender where relevant. If no sex/gender analysis was conducted, the rationale should be stated in the Discussion.
7. Boarder and Territories
The Journal remains neutral on jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Where a potential dispute concerning borders or territories arises in a manuscript or correspondence address, the editorial team will seek a resolution that respects all parties involved.
8. Open Access and Licensing
All research published in the Journal is open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0); authors retain copyright. Full details are provided in the Copyright, and open access policies
