Human & Animal Research

Human research

When human subjects were involved in the research, authors are required to provide proof of research ethics or ethics statement along with the submission. The committee or organization (e.g., authors’ Institutional Ethics Review Board) that approved the experiment should be identified. Detailed ethics approval information should include the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e., reference numbers. When ethics approval identifiers are not available, authors should provide written approval from the granting committee or organization as a confidential supplemental file.

Authors should follow the WMA Declaration of Helsinki when carrying out experiments and they should confirm that informed consent was obtained from all human subjects, or their guardians if the subjects are vulnerable. Study participants should be clearly informed of potential risks and benefits associated with participating in the experiment and their right to withhold or withdraw consent. Authors should also state how the informed consent statement was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written).

It is the responsibility of authors to obtain informed consent for publication from study participants. If a study participant is a minor, written consent should be obtained from his/her parent(s) or legal guardian(s).

Authors must declare any restrictions on the availability and the use of human data in their work.

Authors are encouraged to follow the CARE guidelines while reporting a clinical case that involves human subjects. If the article reporting guidelines suggested by Academic Publishing Pte. Ltd. were not pertinent to your work, please look for and refer to the appropriate reporting standards as found on EQUATOR Network, which have been adopted by the field of the works or which apply to their study design.

Animal research

For studies reporting experiments that involve testing on regulated animals (i.e., all live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates), authors should identify the committee or organization (e.g., authors’ Institutional Ethics Review Board) during the submitting stage of the manuscript, which should also detail ethics approval information such as the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e., reference numbers. For research conducted on non-regulated animals, a statement should be made as to why ethical approval was not required.

Authors are encouraged to follow the ARRIVE guidelines while reporting animal research. Experiments on non-human primates should be performed under the recommendations set out in the Weatherall report (The Use of Non-Human Primates in Research). The Editorial Office preserves the right to reject a manuscript against relevant ethical principles.