Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics
Research Methods & Evaluation (General)
The Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics (JERHRE) publishes empirical research and reviews of empirical literature on human research ethics. Empirical knowledge translates ethical principles into procedures appropriate to specific cultures, contexts, and research topics.
JERHRE is the only journal in the field of human research ethics dedicated exclusively to empirical research. Its distinguished editorial and advisory board brings a range of expertise and international perspective to provide high-quality double-blind peer-reviewed original articles. Topics of recent articles include the following:
- Communication Issues: Recruitment; Informed consent; Deception; Relationships as a source of data; Community consultation and outreach; Language and meaning across cultures and contexts
- Acquisition and Use of Data: Privacy; Confidentiality; Uses of data : Privacy; Confidentiality; Uses of data
- Risk and Benefit: Risk, wrong and harm; Benefit, incentive, promise of social value; Risk/benefit assessment : Risk, wrong and harm; Benefit, incentive, promise of social value; Risk/benefit assessment
- Theory, Method and Design: Validity; Modeling; Equitable treatment of participants; Technology, efficiency and sampling; Beliefs about knowledge : Validity; Modeling; Equitable treatment of participants; Technology, efficiency and sampling; Beliefs about knowledge
- Other Influences on Research: Research ethics committees; Other institutional-governance influences; Perceptions that influence research; Taboo, questionable and controversial topics of research; Scientific integrity and responsibility; Ethics and politics; Government and agency regulations and policies; Human-research literacy; Education in the responsible conduct of research (RCR)
Institutions and their researchers share concern about the responsible conduct of research (RCR), but can experience difficulty finding common ground around the interpretation of ethical principles and regulations. JERHRE seeks to create collaboration among these stakeholders by stimulating research and disseminating knowledge to foster the intelligent application of ethical principles in research contexts worldwide.
The basic aim of JERHRE is to improve ethical problem solving in human research. Stakeholders in human research grapple with conflict among various standards. Without evidence-based problem solving, many conflicts are unsatisfactorily settled by applying one-size-fits-all interpretation of principles or regulations, or resorting to anecdote as evidence for one or another interpretation. JERHRE creates collaboration among stakeholders, stimulates research, and disseminates knowledge to foster intelligent application of ethical principles in research contexts worldwide.
| Douglas Wassenaar | University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa |
| Joseph Ali | Johns Hopkins University, USA |
| Nicola Barsdorf | Stellenbosch University, South Africa |
| Elizabeth Buchanan | University of Wisconsin, Stout, USA |
| Susan Bull | University of Oxford, UK |
| Amy Corneli | Duke University School of Medicine, USA |
| Bridget Haire | University of New South Wales, Australia |
| Laura Machin | Lancaster Medical School, UK |
| Lindsay McNair | WIRB-Copernicus Group, USA |
| Paul Ndebele | George Washington University, USA |
| Camille Nebeker | University of California, San Diego, USA |
| Stuart Nicholls | University of Ottawa, Canada |
| Lisa Parker | University of Pittsburgh, USA |
| Stuart Rennie | University of North Carolina, USA |
| Gabrielle Samuel | King’s College, London, UK |
| Silke Schicktanz | University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany |
| Joan E. Sieber | California State University, East Bay, USA |
| Emma Tumilty | Deakin University, Australia |
| David Wendler | National Institutes of Health, USA |
| Heidi Matisonn | University of Cape Town, South Africa |
| Leslie Alexander | Bryn Mawr College, USA |
| Melissa Anderson | University of Minnesota, USA |
| Elizabeth Bankert | Dartmouth College, USA |
| Laura Beskow | Duke University, USA |
| Elizabeth Buchanan | University of Wisconsin, Stout, USA |
| Raymond DeVries | University of Michigan, USA |
| James M. DuBois | Saint Louis University, USA |
| Susan S. Fish | Boston University Medical Center, USA |
| Mark S. Frankel | American Association for the Advancement of Science, USA |
| Lainie Friedman Ross | University of Chicago, USA |
| Christine Grady | National Institutes of Health, USA |
| Adrian Guta | University of Windsor, Canada |
| Elizabeth Heitman | Vanderbilt University, USA |
| Tamer Hifnawy | Taibah University, Saudi Arabia |
| Richard Ittenbach | Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, USA |
| Timothy P. Johnson | University of Minnesota, USA |
| James Kelly | Indiana University, USA |
| Scott Kim | National Institutes of Health, USA |
| Robert J. Levine | Yale University, USA |
| Charles W. Lidz | University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA |
| Kathleen MacQueen | FHI 360 |
| Amy McGuire | Baylor College of Medicine, USA |
| Elana Newman | University of Tulsa, USA |
| Eric Racine | Institut de Recherché Cliniques de Montreal, Canada |
| Jeffery Rodamar | |
| Henry J. Silverman | University of Maryland, USA |
| Holly Taylor | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA |
| David Wendler | National Institutes of Health, USA |
| Leslie Wolf | Georgia State University, USA |
The following is intended to guide and expand, not limit, the scope of articles. As the environment of human research evolves, this section will evolve. If your intended contribution does not fit the categories described here, you are invited to consult with the Editor-in-Chief Doug Wassenaar at wassenaar@ukzn.ac.za
Manuscript Submission
Manuscripts should be transmitted in Word Document or LaTeX form through the journal’s Sage Track website at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jerhre.
Manuscripts prepared for submission to JERHRE should follow the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association and be written in English.
Manuscripts may be major articles (see Manuscript Types Considered For Submission), brief reports of preliminary studies, or book reviews, which are usually by invitation of the Book Review Editor. Articles should be concise, useful and relevant to JERHRE’s target audiences: researchers, members of research ethics committees/IRBs, empirical research ethics scholars/academics, research stakeholders, and research administrators. Articles should be about 4,000 words inclusive, but some flexibility is accommodated if justified. Use of supplemental digital content (SDC) is encouraged if additional detail would be of interest to some readers. Authors may send SDC to be considered for online posting. SDC may include text documents, data sets, replication code, zip files, additional images, and appendices as well as multimedia materials such as audio or video recordings; multimedia requirements are available upon request. For topics typically covered in articles, but not exclusively, fields and disciplines to address, and acceptable approaches to methods and data please read the detailed guide, Manuscript Types Considered for Submission. Authors may contact the editorial office (jre@sagepub.com) with potential submission ideas if they are in doubt as to whether or not they fit the scope or interests of the journal.
Because manuscripts are anonymize reviewed, the parts of the manuscript that reveal the identity of the author must be separate documents. Any figures and tables should also be transmitted as separate documents. Therefore, in the final preparation for submission, create the following as separate documents:
- Title page
- Manuscript, minus figures, tables, and any identifying information
- Any figures, tables or supplementary online documents
- Acknowledgements, Author Note, Biographical Sketch(es)
- Cover letter
Please see the document Manuscript Preparation for more information on how to prepare these parts of your article for submission to JERHRE and comply with the journal’s submission requirements.
General Policies
Policies governing JERHRE's authors, editors, and reviewers are those of the Council of Science Editors, the 6th edition Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, and Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. These policies are consistent with one another. Relevant aspects are described below.
Conflict of Interest (COI) - Authors are required to declare to the editor any conflicts of interest (any financial or other arrangements or commitments that could reasonably be perceived as sources of bias in the design, interpretation, or reporting of the results of the research) upon acceptance in the journal. If there is something you would be prudent to declare, please do so in your cover letter. If none of the authors have situations that might reasonably be perceived as a COI, please state this in your cover letter. Undisclosed conflicts later identified by a third party will be published in an "Errata" if the editors feel the readers should know about such conflicts.
Protection of Human Subjects - Manuscripts reporting data from human subjects research must state, in the Method section, what formal review and approval or waiver was granted by appropriate research ethics committee(s). The treatment of research participants must be in accord with ethical and other requirements, as set forth in the country in which the research was conducted and as specified by the sponsoring agency.
Informed Consent - The approach(es) and method(s) of obtaining informed consent should be described, including the reasons why any unconventional approaches or waivers were deemed more ethical and respectful in the particular culture and context. This discussion of the informed consent processes and rationales should be more than perfunctory, given that research published in JERHRE derives from a wide range of cultures that may require unconventional approaches to informed consent (e.g., Aboriginal communities), contexts (e.g., health outreach work in migrant communities), and methods (e.g., ethnographic studies of parents and children in pediatric research units). Considerable ethical problem solving often must enter into the development of effective research procedures including the establishment of a respectful relationship with the research participants and others in their community. Indeed, a major aim of JERHRE is to contribute to understanding and solving ethical problems of this nature.
If you or your funder wish your article to be freely available online to nonsubscribers immediately upon publication (gold open access), you can opt for it to be included in Sage Choice, subject to the payment of a publication fee. The manuscript submission and peer review procedure is unchanged. On acceptance of your article, you will be asked to let Sage know directly if you are choosing Sage Choice. To check journal eligibility and the publication fee, please visit Sage Choice. For more information on open access options and compliance at Sage, including self/author archiving deposits (green open access) visit Sage Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.
At Sage, we are committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research. Where relevant, The Journal encourages authors to share their research data in a suitable public repository subject to ethical considerations and where data is included, to add a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file. Authors should also follow data citation principles. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway, which includes information about Sage’s partnership with the data repository Figshare.