Authorship and Contributorship
Authorship recognizes substantial scholarly contribution and carries responsibility for the published work. All listed authors must meet all four criteria below, and everyone who meets them must be included:
- A substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of its data.
- Drafting the work or critically revising it for important intellectual content.
- Final approval of the version to be published.
- Agreement to be accountable for the work and to help ensure that questions about its accuracy or integrity are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Funding acquisition, general supervision, administrative support, or language editing alone does not justify authorship. Contributors who do not meet every criterion should be acknowledged, with their permission and a description of their contribution. Gift, honorary, guest, and ghost authorship are unacceptable. Author order must be agreed by the authors, not imposed by the editorial office.
Corresponding author and accountability
The corresponding author manages communication, confirms author approval, and coordinates required disclosures and responses. This role does not remove the responsibilities of other authors. Authors should identify who can verify the supporting records and answer questions about the integrity of the work. Where a guarantor is designated, that person accepts responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole.
Contributor roles
A contribution statement should identify each author’s actual work, using relevant roles from the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT). One person may have several roles, and several people may share a role. A role designation does not by itself establish eligibility for authorship.
Changes in authorship and disputes
Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors must explain the reason and include written agreement from all affected authors, including anyone being added or removed. The journal may pause processing while a request is assessed. Changes after publication require a transparent notice where approved.
Editors do not adjudicate unresolved disputes about who deserves authorship. Such disputes may be referred to the relevant institutions, and consideration or publication may be paused while they are resolved. Undisclosed contributors and inappropriate authorship may also require an integrity investigation.
