Protection of Research Participants and Informed Consent

InterPore Journal requires that all research involving human participants*—including research using their data or biological materials—be designed, conducted, and reported in accordance with internationally accepted ethical principles, such as those outlined in the most recent version of the Declaration of Helsinki. Authors must obtain approval for their study from an appropriate institutional, regional, or national ethics committee or review board before beginning the research. Manuscripts must state the name of the approving body and the approval number or reference. Editors may request documentation of this approval at any stage of the submission or review process. If any aspect of the research could be considered ethically uncertain, authors must clearly justify their approach and confirm that the reviewing body explicitly approved these elements. Ethical approval, however, does not preclude the editors from making their own assessment regarding the appropriateness of the study’s conduct.

Human participants have a fundamental right to privacy. Identifiable information—including names, initials, photographs, demographic details, clinical identifiers, or any other data that could allow an individual to be recognized—must not be included in a manuscript unless it is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or their legal guardian) has provided explicit, written informed consent for its publication. Authors must ensure that participants are shown the content to be published and are informed that their information may be accessible both in print and online. Consent documentation must be securely archived in accordance with relevant institutional or legal requirements.

Nonessential identifying details must be omitted, and authors must ensure that any de-identification does not alter the scientific meaning of the data. If there is any uncertainty about whether anonymity can be maintained, informed consent must be obtained. Manuscripts should clearly state when informed consent has been secured.

The above section was developed with reference to established international ethics guidance, including the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on the Protection of Research Participants.

_{*For the purposes of this policy, “human participants” also includes research involving identifiable or potentially identifiable data, as well as human biological materials such as tissues, cells, blood or bodily fluids, human embryos and gametes, human embryonic stem cells, and related materials. This definition also covers the secondary use of previously collected samples or data when individuals could be identified or when ethical approval is required by local regulations.}