Journal A received a submission in which the authors conducted a field experiment. The authors noted that at the time of the experiment, ethics procedures were being developed at the authors' institution (institution A) and as a consequence of this, different departments within institution A had their own ethics procedures in place. The authors noted that they followed the procedures of their department, and that the department coordinator signed off on the study. Further, they noted that institution A funded the study.
Subsequently, when the results of the study came to light (and the study attracted a lot of media attention), a representative from institution A claimed insufficient ethical clearance and instructed the authors to delete all publicly available working papers and media summaries relating to the work. The matter was eventually settled by a court case, which was won by the authors. The authors stated within their submission that the submitting author's current institution (institution B) is happy for the study to be published. However, there was no mention of whether the co-author's institution (institution C) also supports publication of the study, so the editors have asked for such documentation to be provided.
Question for COPE Council
- Can you provide guidance on how best to proceed with this submission?
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance.
The journal is not in the position to decide if an appropriately constituted research ethics body would have approved the study. The journal could ask all of the authors to declare that the study was approved according to the rules of the institution where the study was conducted. It may not be relevant to have institutional approval from all of the institutions. The general rule is that approval is needed where patients are seen, or where data are collected and stored.
The court ruling should be enough. For human studies, the principal investigator would typically apply for ethics board approval and name the other investigators and say if consent will be obtained from participants. The funder would also require that such approval/consent notice be given. If the funder is the institution, there would/should be institutional guidelines if department level, institution level or external board approval is needed. After funding is granted, the funding normally would not be released without checking approvals were obtained. If the research were to directly involve the other authors’ institutions, an administrative review by those other sites would be needed as a formality.
Here, however, if the journal is satisfied with the court and main institutional investigation, an editorial note could be added for clarification with agreement of the authors: it shouldn’t be necessary to ask the other institutions.