Roles And Responsibilities Of Authors Contributors Reviewers Icmje

© 2025 International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. All Rights Reserved. Site designed and hosted by Annals of Internal Medicine / American College of Physicians. Scientific manuscripts are rarely the work of one author. They are the result of complex collaborative relationships. This reality begs the questions: Who is the author of a scientific manuscript?

When is someone credited as an author, and when are they considered a non-author contributor? [Note: In May, 2023, the ICMJE updated the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. the links in this blog have been updated to reflect these changes.] Thankfully, medical communicators do not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to identifying who should be named as an author and who qualifies for acknowledgment. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has published a substantial set of recommendations to standardize practices and guide ethical reporting and publishing of research. The guidelines are crafted for authors who submit work for publication in ICMJE member journals; however, many non-ICMJE journals also have adopted similar guidelines.

The ICMJE recommends that authors consult its guidelines while also following individual journals’ instructions. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) started in 1978 to standardize medical journal formats. Over time, they expanded to address broader issues in medical publishing, including authorship rules. The ICMJE recommendations, first published in 1979 and updated regularly, are now a key guide for defining authorship in biomedical research. They aim to ensure that authorship is given to those who truly deserve it and can take responsibility for the work. To be an author under ICMJE guidelines, you must meet all four of these criteria:

These criteria are designed to ensure that all authors have played a meaningful role in the research and can stand behind its findings. While ICMJE guidelines started in medical publishing, they are now used in other scientific fields. If you're working in biomedical research, it's essential to know these guidelines. However, researchers in other fields may find them useful as well, especially as interdisciplinary work becomes more common. This guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Authorship confers credit and has important academic, social, and financial implications.

Authorship also implies responsibility and accountability for published work. The following recommendations are intended to ensure that contributors who have made substantive intellectual contributions to a paper are given credit as authors, but also that contributors credited as authors understand their role in... Editors should be aware of the practice of excluding local researchers from low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) from authorship when data are from LMICs. Inclusion of local authors adds to fairness, context, and implications of the research. Lack of inclusion of local investigators as authors should prompt questioning and may lead to rejection. Because authorship does not communicate what contributions qualified an individual to be an author, some journals now request and publish information about the contributions of each person named as having participated in a submitted...

Editors are strongly encouraged to develop and implement a contributorship policy. Such policies remove much of the ambiguity surrounding contributions, but leave unresolved the question of the quantity and quality of contribution that qualify an individual for authorship. The ICMJE has thus developed criteria for authorship that can be used by all journals, including those that distinguish authors from other contributors. The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria: In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

Our core practice regarding authorship rules originated from the ICMJE, which defines the Role of Authors and Contributors. Based on ICMJE, authorship criteria must match the below conditions: In addition to being accountable for the parts of their work, an author should identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other work details. Also, the authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors. All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. The acknowledgments section should list those who do not meet all four criteria.

Participation solely in the acquisition of funding, data gathering, technical help, writing assistance, and general supervision of the research group does not warrant authorship. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged. Please guarantee that anyone stated in the Acknowledgements section has granted its clearance for permission to be listed. A corresponding author is an individual who, when working on a paper with multiple authors, takes primary responsibility for communicating with the journal you intend to publish in. They contact the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and eventual publication process while ensuring all the journal's administrative requirements. The corresponding author usually makes themselves available to respond to editorial queries throughout the process.

They should also be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work, and any questions that arise, and to cooperate with requests for additional data or information. An authorship statement is required for every manuscript submitted and should state who has contributed to the planning, conduct, and reporting of the work described in the article. Please clarify and write who was responsible for:

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