Q: Does funding of a research qualify for authorship?
Can a faculty member include his name on the student research published online because the former funded the paper publication? As the Research Head, part of my function is to check and receive papers written by the students at the end of every semester. I review them and select those that are publishable. I never include my name in the papers for publication because I feel it unethical. But some researchers allow other faculty members to write their names on the published papers because the latter funded the publication of the students’ papers in open access research journals. Is the act unethical?
The funding of a study or the paper publication in itself does not qualify for an authorship in the manuscript. Based on your question, you seem to be the funder as well as a reviewer of the articles in your department. If your review does not involve providing intellectual output to the research, availing authorship in this scenario will also be considered unethical.
Most journals comply with the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines for the ethics in publishing of a manuscript. According to these guidelines, authorship can only be recommended if the contributor makes a significant contribution to the scientific concept of the study, drafts or revises the manuscript, approves the manuscript, and agrees to be held accountable for all aspects of the work. In contrast, the acquisition of funding and providing general supervision does not qualify a contributor for authorship, but can be acknowledged in the acknowledgments section of a manuscript.
Related reading:
- Authorship: An evolving concept
- Defining authorship: A taxonomy to assign contributor roles in multi-author papers
- Basics of authorship in academic publishing
This content belongs to the Conducting Research Stage