Hi Dr Nath

I would like to think every academic institution has an Ethical Committee saddled with the responsibility of addressing all ethical issues in proposed studies.

Hello,

If the journal specifically asks for an approval from such organization but your institution does not have one, my suggestion would be to send a message to the editor and explain the situation. If the Editor gives you a negative answer, then find another journal.

All journals ask you to comply with ethical guidelines in research (and you should respect that during your studies), but not all the journals ask you for specific approval from ethical commitees.

Regards

Thank you Dr Mohammed and Dr Lulian for your complements. I am asking this questions because there are still some Academic Institution where there is no Ethical Committee. Researcher may fulfill all the guidelines related to ethical considerations from their knowledge. But some journals are found very strict during their early stage of screening of articles too.

In that case I’d suggest approaching the nearest relevant government institution such as health ministry/office or even legal firm, and forward the study report to them/explain the situation. They should be able to give a support letter or affidavit than can stand in as Ethics clearance, which you could then indicate in your paper.

Journals are very strict with the issue of ethics approvals, for obvious reasons. It is very likely that any other journal you submit to, would require ethical statement.

I hope this helps!

Specially if you dealt with human beings or even animals, you will have to have ethical issues a priori. Hope you proceeded the data collection getting permission from ethical board and informed consent from the participants. In that case, you may write an ethical approval statement in your manuscript.