Ethical Clearance

Research involving human participants, personal data or animals must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee, and the manuscript must say so.

When ethical clearance is required

•           Surveys, interviews, focus groups, experiments or observations involving people.

•           Use of identifiable personal, medical or financial data.

•           Research involving vulnerable groups (children, patients, prisoners, indigenous communities).

•           Research involving animals.

What authors must include in an “Ethical Approval” statement in the Methods section:

•           the name of the ethics committee or institutional review board, and the approval number and date;

•           confirmation that informed consent was obtained from all participants (and from parents or guardians for minors);

•           how participant confidentiality and data protection were ensured, in line with Indonesia’s Personal Data Protection Law (UU No. 27 of 2022) or equivalent laws in the authors’ country.

Exemptions. Studies using only public secondary data (e.g. financial statements, published statistics or policy documents) or fully anonymised data do not need approval; authors state this instead (e.g. “This study uses publicly available secondary data and did not require ethical approval”). Where the authors’ institution has no ethics committee, they explain how the research complies with the Declaration of Helsinki or equivalent principles.

Editors may request the approval letter at any stage. Manuscripts without adequate ethical safeguards are rejected.