Authorship and Contributorship Policy

General Principles

Authorship should provide appropriate credit for scholarly contributions and indicate responsibility for the work presented. Individuals should be listed as authors only when their contribution to the work is sufficient to justify authorship.

All listed authors should be aware of the submission, approve the manuscript in the form in which it is submitted and accept appropriate responsibility for their contributions to the work.

Individuals who have contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors. Where appropriate, their contributions may instead be recognized in an acknowledgement or contributorship statement.

Authorship Criteria

An author should have made a substantial scholarly contribution to the work. Such contributions may include participation in the conception or design of the study, acquisition or generation of data, analysis or interpretation of results, or other substantial intellectual contributions to the research.

Authors should also participate in drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content, approve the version submitted for publication and accept accountability for their own contributions.

Authorship should not be granted solely on the basis of providing funding, general supervision, administrative support, access to facilities, routine technical assistance or another contribution that does not by itself constitute a sufficient scholarly contribution.

Author Responsibilities

Authors are responsible for ensuring that the information supplied about authorship is complete and accurate. Each author should be able to identify their contribution to the work and should cooperate in addressing reasonable questions concerning the accuracy or integrity of their contribution.

Authors should ensure that all individuals who qualify for authorship are appropriately included and that individuals who do not qualify are not presented as authors.

Authors are also responsible for providing accurate affiliations and other author information requested by the journal and for disclosing relevant conflicts of interest and funding information.

Corresponding Author

The corresponding author serves as the principal point of communication between the authors and the journal during the submission, peer-review and publication processes.

The corresponding author is expected to ensure that all appropriate authors are included in the manuscript, that the author information provided to the journal is accurate and that all authors are appropriately informed about the submission and significant developments relating to it.

The corresponding author should communicate editorial requests and decisions to the other authors where appropriate and should coordinate responses concerning revisions, declarations, proofs and other publication matters.

Designation as corresponding author does not reduce the responsibility of the other authors for their own contributions or for matters concerning the integrity of the work.

Author Order

The order in which authors are listed should be agreed by the authors and should appropriately reflect the conventions of the relevant discipline and the authors' agreed representation of their contributions.

Science Insights and its journals do not normally determine the relative contribution of authors or decide the order in which authors should be listed. Authors are responsible for resolving these matters before submission wherever possible.

Contributorship

Journals may require or request information describing the contributions made by individual authors. Contribution statements should accurately reflect the roles performed by each contributor and should not assign contributions that were not actually made.

Where a contributorship statement is provided, authors should review and agree to the description of their respective contributions before publication.

A contributorship statement supplements rather than replaces the responsibility associated with authorship.

Acknowledgements

Individuals who contributed to the research or preparation of the manuscript but do not qualify for authorship may be acknowledged where appropriate. Examples may include individuals who provided technical assistance, administrative support or other relevant contributions.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that persons named in an acknowledgement have been appropriately informed where necessary and that acknowledgement does not misleadingly imply endorsement of the work.

Changes in Authorship

Requests to add, remove or rearrange authors after submission must be supported by a clear explanation for the requested change. The editorial office may require written confirmation from all affected authors before considering the request.

Requests for authorship changes may be subject to additional scrutiny, particularly where they are made after peer review, acceptance or publication. The journal may request supporting information where necessary to establish that the proposed change is legitimate and has been appropriately authorized.

Authorship changes should not be used to conceal contributions, improperly add individuals who did not qualify for authorship or remove legitimate authors without appropriate justification.

Group Authorship

Where research is conducted by a consortium, collaborative group or other collective, authors should clearly identify the group and, where appropriate, the individuals who accept responsibility for the manuscript.

The presentation of group authorship should allow readers and indexing services, where practicable, to distinguish between authors and other contributors.

Deceased Authors

An individual who made a qualifying contribution to the work but died before submission or publication may, where appropriate, remain listed as an author.

In such circumstances, the manuscript should appropriately indicate that the author is deceased, and the remaining authors should ensure that the individual's contribution is represented accurately and respectfully.

Authorship Disputes

Science Insights and its journals may seek clarification when an authorship dispute affects a submitted or published work, but they are not normally in a position to determine the relative contributions of individuals where the facts are disputed.

Authors should attempt to resolve authorship disagreements through their institution or other appropriate body. Where necessary, the editorial process may be suspended while a significant authorship dispute is being considered.

If reliable findings concerning authorship are subsequently provided by an institution or other appropriate authority, the journal may take suitable editorial action in relation to the manuscript or published article.

Inappropriate Authorship

Guest, gift and ghost authorship are inconsistent with responsible scholarly publishing. Individuals should not be listed as authors merely because of their position, reputation, seniority or relationship with the research team.

Similarly, individuals who made contributions that would reasonably qualify them for authorship should not be deliberately omitted from the author list.

Suspected deliberate misrepresentation of authorship or contributorship may be considered under the Research Integrity and Misconduct Policy .