Research Ethics Policy

What this policy covers

This policy applies to any manuscript reporting research that involves human participants, identifiable human data, or human tissue. In the social sciences that includes a wider range of work than is sometimes assumed:

• Surveys, questionnaires and structured instruments;
• Interviews, focus groups and oral histories;
• Participant and non-participant observation, including ethnography;
• Experiments and intervention studies;
• Analysis of administrative, institutional or clinical records about identifiable people;
• Research using social media content or other online material about identifiable individuals.

Work based entirely on published literature, aggregate published statistics, or documents in the public record about institutions rather than individuals falls outside it. Where an author is unsure, the editorial office will advise before submission.

Ethics approval

Research within scope must have been approved by a research ethics committee, institutional review board, or equivalent body before data collection began. Retrospective approval obtained after the fact does not satisfy this requirement.

The manuscript must state, in the methods section:

• The full name of the approving body;
• The approval or protocol reference number;
• The date of approval.

Editors may ask to see the approval document. A manuscript whose authors cannot produce it when asked will not be published.

Where no committee exists

Not every institution has a functioning ethics committee, and a blanket requirement would exclude legitimate research from exactly the institutions this journal exists to publish. Where formal review was genuinely unavailable, authors must instead provide a statement explaining:

• Why no committee was available — that the institution has none, rather than that approval was not sought;
• What ethical framework was followed instead, and who reviewed the study against it — a department head, a senior colleague, or a committee at a partner institution;
• How consent, confidentiality and withdrawal were handled in practice;
• What specific risks to participants were identified, and how they were mitigated.

The handling editor assesses this statement on its substance. An honest account of a considered process is acceptable; an assertion that the research was harmless is not. Where the study involves vulnerable participants or more than minimal risk, the journal will not accept it without formal review.

Informed consent

Participants must have agreed to take part knowing what they were agreeing to. Consent is informed when a participant understood, in a language and register they use:

• Who is conducting the research, and who is funding it;
• What participation involves, and how long it takes;
• What will be done with their data, and who will have access to it;
• That participation is voluntary, and that they may withdraw without giving a reason and without consequence;
• Whether and how they could be identified in what is published.

Written consent is expected. Where written consent was inappropriate — low literacy, or a context where signing a document carries risk — documented oral consent is acceptable if the manuscript explains why and describes how it was recorded.

Where the manuscript reproduces material that could identify an individual — a photograph, a detailed case description, a distinctive quotation — separate consent to publish is required, and the authors must confirm they hold it.

Vulnerable participants

Research involving children, people who cannot give consent for themselves, prisoners, refugees, patients, employees of the researcher, or anyone in a relationship of dependency on the research team requires additional safeguards, described in the manuscript.

• Children. Consent from a parent or legal guardian, together with the child’s own assent in terms they understand. A child’s refusal ends their participation regardless of guardian consent.
• Adults unable to consent. Consent from a legally authorised representative, and withdrawal at any sign of distress.
• Dependent relationships. Recruitment through someone other than the person holding authority over the participant, so that declining carries no cost.

Confidentiality and anonymity

Authors are responsible for ensuring that participants cannot be identified from what is published, unless they have consented to identification. Removing names is rarely sufficient on its own: a small community, a named institution, a specific role and an unusual biographical detail together can identify a person as clearly as a name.

The manuscript should describe how identifying detail was handled — pseudonyms, altered non-essential particulars, aggregation of small categories, or withholding of location. Where anonymisation would destroy the analytical value of the material, the alternative is consent to publish, not publication without either.

Data-handling arrangements — storage, access and retention — should also be stated, and must be consistent with the data availability policy. Data may not be shared in a form that breaches the consent under which it was collected.

Secondary and online data

Analysis of an existing dataset requires that the original consent covered reuse of the kind being made, or that the data are properly anonymised and the custodian has authorised the access. The manuscript should name the source and state the terms of access.

Content posted online is not automatically fair to use as research material. Publicly visible is not the same as public: users of a support forum or a private-in-practice group did not post for study. Authors working with such material should state whether the setting was public, whether consent was sought, and how quotations were handled — verbatim quotation is traceable by search, and paraphrase is often the appropriate protection.

Fieldwork and risk

Where research was conducted in a setting carrying risk to participants or researchers — conflict-affected areas, work on sensitive political or religious questions, or research on illegal activity — the manuscript should describe how those risks were assessed and managed, including how material was kept secure and how participants were protected from consequences of having taken part.

Research must comply with the law and applicable norms in the country where it was conducted, as well as with this policy. Where local requirements and this policy differ, the stricter applies.

What to submit

The methods section carries the substantive detail. In addition, the submission form requires a short ethics statement covering:

Manuscripts arriving without an ethics statement where one is required are returned at desk check under the peer review policy rather than sent for review.

If a concern is raised

Where a concern about research ethics arises — before or after publication — the journal follows the procedure in the publication ethics policy. Because a journal cannot investigate what happened in the field, such concerns are referred to the institution that granted or should have granted approval, and the journal acts on that institution’s finding.

Concerns may be sent to ceoborjss@gmail.com.