Ethical Principles and Ethics Committee Approval

Ethical Principles and Ethics Committee Approval

The International Journal of Agriculture, Environment and Food Sciences is committed to upholding the highest ethical standards in scholarly publishing.
The journal complies with the ethical requirements of TR Dizin and aligns with international best practices defined by
the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE),
the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the Council of Science Editors (CSE).
It also follows the Yükseköğretim Kurulu Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Guidelines of Türkiye.

Scope of Ethics Committee Approval

Authors must obtain and declare ethics committee approval before conducting studies involving:

  • Human participants — including data collection through questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions, observations, or experiments
  • Clinical research — involving human subjects, patients, or biological samples
  • Animal research — including experimental studies, tissue analyses, or retrospective animal data
  • Studies involving personal or sensitive data regulated under GDPR, KVKK, or similar data protection frameworks

An official document from an authorized ethics committee must be uploaded at the time of manuscript submission.
Authors are responsible for obtaining and retaining proof of approval.

Manuscript Declaration Requirements

When ethics approval is required, authors must clearly indicate the following information in the Ethical Approval section of the article:

  • Name of the approving institution or committee
  • Date of approval
  • Approval number or protocol ID


If ethics committee approval is not required, this must be explicitly stated in the article, for example:


“This study does not require ethics committee approval as it does not involve human or animal participants, or data subject to ethical review.”


In such cases, authors must upload a signed Ethics Statement Declaration Form confirming exemption status.

Additional Ethical Responsibilities


  • Informed consent must be obtained and declared in the manuscript when reporting case studies or studies involving human data.
  • Permission must be obtained for the use of any non-original materials, such as proprietary scales, questionnaires, images, or figures created by others.
  • Copyright compliance must be maintained for all reused intellectual, visual, or artistic content.

Downloads and Resources

Ethics Compliance Summary Table


The following table summarizes when Ethics Committee Approval is required according to
TR Dizin Ethical Guidelines and COPE best practices.


Type of Study / Research Activity Ethics Committee Approval Required? Notes / Documentation
Studies involving human participants (questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, observations, experiments) Yes Ethics Committee Approval Certificate must be uploaded.
Clinical studies with human subjects, patients, or biological samples Yes Approval number and protocol ID must be cited in the manuscript.
Animal experiments, tissue or retrospective animal data studies Yes Institutional animal ethics approval must be provided.
Studies using secondary or publicly available datasets (no personal/identifiable data) Not Always May be exempt if data are anonymized and publicly accessible. Ethics Statement required.
Studies involving personal or sensitive data under GDPR/KVKK Yes Data protection compliance statement and consent must be included.
Laboratory/experimental studies with plant, soil, or chemical materials Usually No Ethics approval not required unless human/animal subjects are involved.
Meta-analysis, review, or theoretical papers (no new data collection) No A declaration stating “Ethics approval not required” must be included.
Case studies including identifiable individuals or photographs Yes Informed consent and ethics approval must both be declared.

Note: Authors are responsible for obtaining and retaining ethical approval documents.
The editorial board may request verification at any time during the review or publication process.



Last Update Time: 7/29/25

Abstracting & Indexing Services

© International Journal of Agriculture, Environment and Food Sciences

All content published by the journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
This license allows others to share and adapt the material for non-commercial purposes, provided proper attribution is given to the original work.
Authors retain the copyright of their articles and grant the journal the right of first publication under an open-access model

Web:  dergipark.org.tr/jaefs  E-mail:  editorialoffice@jaefs.com Phone: +90 850 309 59 27