Research Ethics

1. Purpose and Scope

AMG Transcend Association requires research published in its journals to be conducted and reported in accordance with recognized ethical principles, applicable legal and regulatory requirements, and appropriate standards of responsible research conduct.

This policy establishes publisher-level requirements concerning the ethical conduct, oversight, and reporting of research across the AMG Transcend Association journal portfolio.

More detailed requirements concerning research involving humans, animals, informed consent, ethical approval, clinical trials, data integrity, privacy, and related matters are addressed in the applicable publisher and journal policies.

Individual journals may establish additional ethical requirements appropriate to their aims and scope, disciplines, methodologies, and types of published research.

2. General Ethical Requirements

Authors must ensure that research has been designed, conducted, analyzed, and reported responsibly and with appropriate regard for the rights, welfare, safety, dignity, privacy, and legitimate interests of individuals, communities, animals, and other subjects or environments affected by the research.

Research must comply with ethical, institutional, legal, and regulatory requirements applicable to the location, subject matter, study population, materials, and type of research involved.

Where formal ethical review, institutional approval, regulatory authorization, permission, or another form of oversight is required, it must be obtained from an appropriately authorized body before the relevant research activity begins.

The absence of a formal approval requirement does not remove the authors’ responsibility to conduct and report research ethically and in accordance with applicable professional, institutional, disciplinary, and legal standards.

3. Ethical Approval, Permissions, and Authorizations

Authors are responsible for determining which ethical approvals, permissions, permits, licenses, or regulatory authorizations apply to their research and for obtaining them where required.

Where prior ethical, institutional, or regulatory approval is required, it must be obtained prospectively before the relevant research activities begin.

Research that required prior approval must not be represented as ethically compliant solely on the basis of approval obtained retrospectively after the research was conducted.

Where an exemption, waiver, or formal determination that ethical approval was not required applies, authors must be able to explain the basis for that determination and provide appropriate supporting information where reasonably requested by the journal.

Research must be conducted in accordance with the approved protocol and applicable conditions of approval.

Material protocol deviations or amendments must receive additional approval or authorization where required.

4. Research Involving Humans or Animals

Research involving human participants, identifiable human data, human biological material, or animals is subject to additional ethical requirements.

Such research must receive appropriate ethical review and approval where required and must comply with applicable standards concerning:

• participant protection;
• informed consent;
• privacy and confidentiality;
• publication of identifiable information;
• animal welfare;
• humane research practices;
• ethical and institutional oversight.

AMG Transcend Association maintains separate Human and Animal Research Ethics and Informed Consent and Clinical Trials policies containing more detailed requirements applicable to these forms of research.

Journal-specific requirements may provide additional guidance according to the types of human or animal research considered by the journal.

5. Other Research Requiring Ethical or Regulatory Oversight

Research not involving humans or animals may nevertheless require institutional, legal, regulatory, environmental, safety, or other authorization.

Where applicable, authors must comply with requirements governing matters such as:

• collection or use of biological or environmental materials;
• field sampling and access to protected or restricted locations;
• use, transport, import, export, or transfer of regulated materials;
• biosafety or biosecurity;
• hazardous biological, chemical, or other research materials;
• use of protected species, genetic resources, or other regulated resources;
• access to confidential, proprietary, sensitive, or restricted datasets;
• other activities subject to permits, licenses, institutional oversight, or regulatory control.

Authors must not state, imply, or create the impression that required permissions, permits, approvals, or authorizations were obtained where they were not.

6. Ethical Study Design and Conduct

Ethical responsibility extends beyond the existence of formal approval.

Research must be designed and conducted in a manner that is scientifically and ethically justified.

Where research exposes participants, animals, communities, researchers, the public, or the environment to potential harm, foreseeable risks must be appropriately considered, minimized, monitored, and managed according to applicable requirements.

The existence of an ethics approval, permit, or other authorization does not prevent editors from considering whether the design, conduct, or reporting of a study raises significant unresolved ethical concerns.

Authors remain responsible for compliance with approved research procedures and for transparently reporting ethically relevant aspects of the research.

7. Privacy, Confidentiality, and Sensitive Information

Research involving personal, confidential, sensitive, identifiable, or restricted information must be conducted in accordance with applicable ethical, legal, institutional, and data-protection requirements.

Authors must take appropriate measures to protect confidentiality and prevent unauthorized disclosure of identifiable or sensitive information.

Publication of identifiable information may require additional consent or authorization beyond consent to participate in the research.

Where data have been anonymized, pseudonymized, aggregated, or otherwise protected, authors remain responsible for ensuring that applicable ethical and legal requirements have been satisfied.

Detailed requirements concerning human participants, informed consent, and publication of identifiable information are addressed in the applicable specialized policies.

8. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for the accuracy, completeness, and transparency of statements concerning the ethical conduct and oversight of their research.

Where applicable, manuscripts must include accurate and sufficiently specific information concerning:

• ethical review and approval;
• the name of the approving body or relevant authority;
• approval or reference information;
• informed consent;
• waivers or exemptions;
• animal welfare oversight;
• clinical-trial registration;
• regulatory or institutional permissions;
• relevant permits or authorizations;
• other ethical safeguards required for the research.

Authors must not fabricate, alter, misrepresent, conceal, or omit material information concerning ethical approval, consent, permissions, or compliance.

Authors must retain appropriate supporting documentation and provide reasonable clarification or evidence where legitimately requested during editorial assessment, peer review, production, or assessment of a subsequent ethical concern.

9. Responsibilities of Journals and Editors

AMG Transcend Association journals must assess research-ethics compliance as part of the editorial process where relevant to the nature of the submitted work.

Editors may request:

• clarification or revision of ethical statements;
• copies or other evidence of ethics approvals or determinations;
• explanations concerning exemptions or waivers;
• documentation concerning informed consent or publication permissions;
• information concerning protocol amendments or deviations;
• evidence of applicable permits or regulatory authorizations;
• additional information necessary to evaluate a specific ethical concern.

Editors may seek independent scientific, ethical, legal, methodological, or other expert advice where the available information does not permit an adequate assessment.

The existence of an approval document does not require a journal to proceed with publication where substantial unresolved ethical concerns remain.

10. Inadequate or Missing Ethical Approval

Where research required prior ethical approval or another mandatory authorization and the authors cannot demonstrate that it was appropriately obtained, the manuscript may be unsuitable for publication.

Editors must consider:

• the nature of the required approval or authorization;
• the circumstances in which the research was conducted;
• the available documentation;
• the seriousness of the deficiency;
• its implications for participants, animals, researchers, communities, or the environment;
• its implications for research integrity and the scholarly record.

A missing or incomplete ethics statement in a manuscript may be correctable where the required approval was in fact appropriately obtained before the relevant research activity began.

By contrast, failure to obtain an approval or authorization that was required prospectively may constitute a substantive ethical concern and must not be treated merely as a reporting omission.

Retrospective documentation must not be used to create the false impression that required prospective approval existed.

11. Ethical Concerns Identified During Editorial Review

Where an ethical concern is identified before publication, the journal may:

• request clarification or additional documentation;
• pause editorial processing while the matter is assessed;
• seek independent ethical, scientific, legal, or other expert advice;
• request appropriate correction or additional reporting;
• request confirmation from an institution or ethics body where appropriate;
• reject the manuscript where applicable ethical requirements were not satisfied or compliance cannot reasonably be established;
• refer a serious matter to an institution, ethics body, regulator, funder, or other appropriate authority where necessary.

An allegation, uncertainty, incomplete statement, or unresolved question must not automatically be treated as established misconduct.

Editorial responses must be fair, evidence-based, impartial, and proportionate to the nature and seriousness of the concern.

12. Ethical Concerns Identified After Publication

Credible ethical concerns identified after publication must be assessed even where the research successfully completed editorial evaluation and peer review before publication.

Authors may be asked to provide relevant documentation, explanations, approvals, consent records, or other supporting evidence.

The journal may also seek information or advice from relevant institutions, ethics bodies, regulators, or appropriately qualified experts where necessary.

Depending on the findings and their effect on the reliability, legality, ethical acceptability, or transparency of the published research, the journal may take appropriate post-publication action.

Such action may include:

• no further action where the concern is not substantiated;
• clarification;
• correction;
• an expression of concern;
• retraction;
• another measure necessary to maintain an accurate, ethical, and responsible scholarly record.

Detailed post-publication procedures are addressed in the Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern policy.

13. Relationship with Research Integrity

Research ethics and research integrity are closely related but are not interchangeable.

Ethical approval does not by itself establish that research data, analyses, images, authorship, methods, or reporting are accurate or reliable.

Conversely, technically accurate or methodologically sound research may still raise serious ethical concerns where it was conducted without required protections, approvals, consent, permissions, or authorizations.

Questions concerning fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, data or image manipulation, peer-review manipulation, inappropriate authorship, and related publication-integrity matters are addressed under the Publication Ethics and Research Integrity and other applicable policies.

Where an issue involves both research ethics and research integrity, the journal may apply the relevant policies together.

14. Relationship with Other Policies

This policy should be read together with applicable AMG Transcend Association and journal policies concerning:

• Human and Animal Research Ethics
• Informed Consent and Clinical Trials
• Publication Ethics and Research Integrity
• Data Integrity and Reproducibility
• Authorship and Contributor Responsibilities
• Conflict of Interest and Competing Interests
• AI and Generative Tools
• Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern
• Complaints and Appeals

Journal-specific policies may establish additional ethical requirements appropriate to the research disciplines, methodologies, study populations, and types of studies considered by the journal.