Authorship of research papers: ethical and professional issues for short-term researchers.
Although the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has published clear guidance on the authorship of scientific papers, short-term contract research workers, who perform much of the research that is reported in the biomedical literature, are often at a disadvantage in terms of recognition, reward and career progression. This article identifies several professional, ethical and operational issues associated with the assignment of authorship, describes how a university department of primary care set about identifying and responding to the concerns of its contract research staff on authorship and describes a set of guidelines that were produced to deal with the ethical and professional issues raised. These guidelines include directions on how authorship should be negotiated and allocated and how short-term researchers can begin to develop as authors. They also deal with the structures required to support an equitable system, which deals with the needs of short-term researchers in ways that are realistic in the increasingly competitive world of research funding and publication, and may offer a model for more formal guidelines that could form part of institutional research policy.
Newman
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Department of General Practice & Primary Care, King's College London, 5 Lambeth Walk, London SE11 6SP, UK.
Jones
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D001319:Authorship; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000941:ethics; D032984:Ethics, Research; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D016134:Organizational Policy; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011642:Publications; D012108:Research Personnel / Q000523:psychology; D014495:Universities