Ethics of Experimentation

Please ensure that all research reported in submitted papers has been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner, and is in full compliance with all relevant codes of experimentation and legislation. All original research papers involving humans, animals, plants, biological material, protected or non-public datasets, collections or sites, must include a written statement in the Methods section, confirming ethical approval has been obtained from the appropriate local ethics committee or Institutional Review Board and that where relevant, informed consent has been obtained. For animal studies, approval must have been obtained from the local or institutional animal use and care committee. All research studies on humans (individuals, samples, or data) must have been performed in accordance with the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki. In settings where ethics approval for non-interventional studies (e.g. surveys) is not required, authors must include a statement to explain this. In settings where there are no ethics committees in place to provide ethical approval, authors are advised to contact the Editor to discuss further. Detailed guidance on ethics considerations and mandatory declarations can be found in our Editorial Policies section on Research Ethics.