The Ethical Rules That Need to be Obeyed During Research:

According to the ULAKBIM verdict dated 25 February 2020, it is needed to be getting an Ethics Committee Approval in the studies that are conducted on animals and humans (regardless of age limitation). The received approval should be stated in the journal's method section. The ethical committee approval should be uploaded to the system with the article.

The studies that do not align with these conditions will be returned to their author(s).

The explanation that has been made by the TR index about the application of TR index criteria specification about the Ethical rules:
In the criteria, the specifications about the Ethical rules that have been mentioned in past years have been detailed in the year 2020 with explanations, with the assumption of the needed approvals are received for the studies that need ethical committee approval in their research fields, the subject of "it is needed that the approval should be included in the articles" was added to the criteria. But, as far as it can be understood from the feedback, it is seen that detailed information is needed regarding the Ethics Council Permissions. Therefore, a comprehensive study will, later on, will be shared from the TR index website and will be announced to you. We are presenting the information that we thought will help based on frequently asked questions below.

QUESTION: Is ethics council approval needed for all articles? No. In the criteria, it is stated as the articles "that need Ethics Council Approval". The studies that need Ethics Council approval are as below.

*All kinds of research that are conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collecting by using the techniques of a questionnaire, interview, focus group work, observation, experiment, discussion
*The usage of humans and animals (including material/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes
*The clinical research that is conducted on humans,
*The research that is conducted on animals,
*The retrospective studies that in duly with the law on the protection of personal data Also;
*Stating that an "Informed consent form" was taken in case reports,
*Obtaining and stating permission from the owner for the usage of other's scales, questionnaires, photographs,
*Stating that it was aligned with the regulations of copyright for the used idea and works of art

QUESTION: Should it be taken retrospective ethics Council Approval for the publishings that are generated from work and thesis that were completed in past years? It is not needed for a retrospective ethics council approval for articles that used pre 2020 year research data, generated from the works of postgraduate/doctorate (should be stated in the article), were sent to the journal for a publication application a year before, were approved but not yet published.

QUESTION: With these rules of the TR Index, a constraint is applied to the publications that are being made outside of the universities? No. The researchers that are not a member of a university can apply to Ethics Councils that are found in their regions.


Journals should state that they are aligned with the "Publication Ethic", "Research Ethic" and "receiving Legal/Private permit" by referencing international standards, by opening a different heading for each one of them on the web page and in the printed journal.

In journals, the subject of the alliance with the ethics of publication should not only be left to the authors' responsibility, the journal should clearly define the path that will be taken in the subject of ethics of publication.

In the articles that will be published in the journal, whether or not an ethics council approval and/or legal/private approval is needed should be stated in the article. If it is needed that these approvals should be taken, it should be presented clearly from which institution, at which date, and with which ruling or numeral number that it is taken (The articles to be published must be sent as a (pdf/doc/docx) when submitting).

If the study requires the usage of human and animal subjects, it should be enounced that the study is conducted in alliance with the international declaration, guide, etc.

It is a substance of concern that the work that is related to the stated subjects should be done within this year and if it has deficiencies, it should be compensated as soon as possible.

With our regards, Journal Website