ETHICAL CLEARENCE

A. Introduction

As a scientific journal publishing the outcomes of community engagement, Reswara Jurnal Pengabdian kepada Masyarakat highly values humanity, safety, dignity, human rights, and the welfare of all target audiences or partners involved. Given that community service activities essentially involve humans (such as the general public, communities, MSMEs, or students) and/or animals as subjects or objectives of the program interventions, we enforce a strict ethical policy to prevent moral and legal violations in the field.

B. Mandatory Ethical Clearance

  1. High-Risk Research/Activities: Any article resulting from activities involving clinical trials, medical interventions, physical procedures, administration of specific substances, or other actions posing potential physical or psychological risks to human and/or animal subjects must declare the number and year of the official Ethical Clearance document issued by an authorized ethical committee. This information must be stated explicitly under the Implementation Method section of the manuscript.
  2. Accreditation Disincentive: Failure to declare the official ethical clearance document number or a valid ethical compliance statement in articles involving humans/animals will result in a deduction of -3 points (disincentive) during the national journal accreditation evaluation.

C. Provisions for Low-Risk or No-Risk Activities

The majority of community service projects (such as training, counseling, MSME management mentoring, non-medical technology transfer, or social campaigns) are classified as posing only minor discomfort or no risk at all (low and privilege risk/low risk). For manuscripts in this category, the official Ethical Clearance document from a committee may be substituted with an author's Self-Declaration of Ethical Compliance, describing adherence to community engagement ethics.
This self-declaration must be formally approved by the Peer Reviewers and/or the Editorial Team during the peer-review process before the manuscript is accepted for publication.

D. Core Ethical Principles in Community Engagement

Authors must ensure that the field execution of community service adheres to the following ethical principles:
  1. Informed Consent: All participants or target partners have been fully informed about the program's objectives, benefits, and procedures, and have voluntarily consented to participate and be documented in the manuscript.
  2. Confidentiality and Privacy: Authors must protect the confidentiality of personal identities, sensitive data, or medical histories of the partners, unless written permission is granted for mutual promotional purposes (e.g., the partner's MSME brand name).
  3. Beneficence: The program must be carefully designed to generate measurable, positive socio-economic impacts for the partners, free from any exploitative practices.