Prospective studies on humans
Especially where the research involves an intervention (e.g. a clinical trial), participants must provide informed written consent to be part of the study.
Authors must be prepared to provide dated copies signed by the participants and author(s) to the journal editorial team if requested. In studies where verbal informed consent has been obtained rather than written informed consent, this must be explained and stated within the manuscript.
Clinical trials
In addition to the required informed written consent (as stated above), clinical trial protocols must also be registered in a publicly accessible registry prior to participant recruitment. The public registry must be open to all prospective registrants and managed by a registry conforming to WHO standards.
A list of eligible registries can be found at the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). Trials can also be registered at Clinical Trials.gov and other primary registries in the WHO primary registries network.
The trial registration number must be included in the manuscript. Any deviation from the original trial protocol must be explained, especially changes concerning primary outcomes.
Clinical trials should be registered prospectively – i.e. before participant recruitment. However, for clinical trials that have not been registered prospectively, Taylor & Francis journals may consider clinical trials which have been registered at least prior to data analysis. This is to make sure the transparent and complete dissemination of all clinical trial results which ultimately impact human health.
Authors of retrospectively registered trials must be prepared to provide further information to the journal editorial office if requested.
Details on prospective and retrospective registration are available from the AllTrials campaign and the ICMJE.
We follow the WHO and ICMJE description of the clinical trial, which is described 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. This can be with or without concurrent comparison or control groups.
Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example, drugs, cells and other biological products, surgical procedures, radiologic procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes, etc.). This includes all phases of the trial, starting from Phase 1.
Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events.
Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration.
Taylor & Francis reserve the right to reject submissions (pre-publication) or retract published articles involving clinical trials where authors have not been able to adequately address concerns regarding the registration status and/or conduct of the clinical trial. Authors must be prepared to provide further supporting information related to their clinical trial (e.g. original data) to the journal editorial office upon request.
Clinical Case reports
A clinical case report is a detailed clinical report on an individual patient. As the level of details given in the manuscript can potentially identify the patient, explicit Consent to Publish is required for the publication of the case.
Authors must obtain this from the patient (or their guardians if they are not adults or lack capacity to provide informed consent, or next of kin if deceased). This must be done even if the authors have removed direct identifiers.
Authors are advised to adhere to CARE guidelines in order to ensure all key details about the case are reported.
Consent to publish is a journal requirement, and cannot be exempted by an ethics committee.
Authors may use this Consent to Publish form, which should be completed, signed, and saved securely. Authors should be prepared to share this with the journal editorial office if requested.
A statement to confirm consent to publish has been obtained must be included within the manuscript.
Organ or tissue transplants
Taylor & Francis endorses the ethics guidelines described by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Medical Association (WMA). Specifically, all studies involving transplantation of donated human organs should be conducted with ethical approval from an appropriate committee, and all sources of donor tissue must be provided in the submitted manuscript.
Authors are expected to verify that donated organs were obtained with full informed consent from the donor, or donor’s parent/guardian (if the donor is a minor), or their next of kin (if the donor is deceased). Consent must have been given with free will, under no coercion or bribery of any kind.
Authors of any research articles reporting the use of donated organs must include a statement to confirm informed consent was obtained. Authors must be particularly attentive to the risks associated with working with vulnerable populations and should be prepared to provide details of the process by which informed consent was obtained.
These requirements apply for all studies (including follow-up studies) involving donors or patients who have received organ or tissue transplantation. Taylor & Francis journals reserve the right to reject submissions (pre-publication) or retract published articles involving transplantation, where the authors are unable to provide confirmed evidence of informed consent. Authors must be prepared to provide further supporting information related to their study (e.g. ethical approval and informed consent forms) to the journal editorial office upon request.
Human embryos and human stem cells
Authors of research reporting the use of human embryos, human embryonic stem cells (including clinical applications of stem cells) and related materials, must include a statement within the manuscript to confirm that all experiments were performed in accordance with all safety considerations, ethical guidelines and applicable regulations.
Authors must be able to verify that all recipients and/or donors of stem cells or tissues (or their next of kin if the donor is deceased) provided full informed consent.
Taylor & Francis endorses the principles on ethical stem cell research outlined in the ISSCR Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation.
Specifically, authors must include a statement within the manuscript to provide details of the name of the ethics committee(s) which approved the study. They must also include the reference/permit numbers where available, and a statement to confirm informed consent was obtained.
Consent for research involving children, adolescents, and vulnerable or incapacitated study participants
Written informed consent must be obtained from the parent or guardian of any participants who are not able to provide full informed consent themselves. Age of legal adulthood is determined by the country in which study participants are based, which is typically between ages 16-18.
In settings where verbal informed consent has been obtained rather than written informed consent, this must be explained and stated within the manuscript.
In accordance with the principles outlined in the Nuremberg Code and the Belmont Report, informed consent must have been given with free will, under no coercion or bribery of any kind.
Retrospective studies
Researchers must confirm they have obtained ethical approval to conduct the study, as well as permission from the dataset owner to use the information in databases/repositories for the purposes of the research they are conducting.
Where permission to use information from a database/repository is not required (e.g. where it is publicly available and unrestricted re-use is permitted via an open license), a statement to explain this must be included within the manuscript.
Data acquired must be kept anonymized unless otherwise advised by the owners of the content in the database. Where participants’ details are not required to be anonymized, authors must be able to provide evidence that written informed consent, including consent to publish, was obtained from participants.
Survey studies
Researchers must ensure they have informed all participants why the research is being conducted, whether or not anonymity is assured, and how the data they are collecting is being stored. The participant’s right to confidentiality should always be considered and they should be fully informed about the aims of the research and if there are any risks associated. Their voluntary consent to participate should be recorded and any legal requirements on data protection should be adhered to.
Where required by national law or the researcher’s institution, ethical approval must be obtained prior to conducting the study. In settings where ethics approval for survey studies is not required, authors should include a statement to explain this within the manuscript.
In settings where ethics approval for survey studies is not required, authors must include a statement to explain this within the manuscript.
Covert observational research
Covert observational research requires particular ethical and legal considerations but may be acceptable in rare cases with a strong justification. Researchers must also consider the emerging legal frameworks surrounding rights to privacy, which vary considerably across the globe. Authors conducting covert research should consult relevant guidelines, such as those outlined in the British Sociological Association’s Statement of Ethical Practice.
All studies that include covert research must include the following:
A statement within the manuscript providing a full rationale for the covert nature of the research and the name of the ethics committee(s) that approved the study (and include the reference/permit numbers where available).
If the study takes place on a social-media platform (such as Tinder), researchers should consult the platform’s code of conduct and/or terms of use to determine whether they need the platform’s permission to include user data in their research.
The use of aliases or online personas should be declared.
Ideally, researchers should seek informed consent from the study participants after completion of the study.
Please note that journal editors, scholarly societies and associations, and the publisher reserve the right to deem covert research unsuitable for consideration in their journal.
Research on indigenous communities
Authors should be aware of any specific research ethics approval and informed consent procedures which need to be followed in order to conduct research in communities where special processes for permissions may exist. Authors should also be aware of cultural sensitivities or any restrictions associated with the publication of content, including images included in their manuscripts. In many indigenous communities, additional permissions may need to be sought from community leaders or an Elder.
Authors working with indigenous communities are advised to consult appropriate guidelines for ethical research and publishing (including requirements for authorship) such as:
Authors conducting research using media tools are advised to consult appropriate guidelines such as:
Communication research
Social media research
Scholars using data gathered from social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, etc.) should be aware of national laws and ethical guidance on the gathering of and publication of such information.
When researchers are interacting with individuals or obtaining private information, they should obtain ethical approval prior to conducting the study. Researchers should also ensure appropriate anonymization and obtain informed consent from anyone who could potentially be identified.
Please note that not all data can be collected as fair use or a copyright exception.Authors must check the social media platform’s user policy or terms of service in the region where the research was conducted to determine whether permission is required from the platform.
Authors are advised to consult appropriate guidance such as the ethics statement and framework from Social Data Science Lab the ethical guidelines for digital research from the British Sociological Association.