Ethics of authorship

We were pleased to see Dr. Ganatra’s essay on the ethics of writing and publishing scientific papers. Some organisations have already instituted rules on authorship. We reproduce below an adaptation of the brief guidelines laid down by Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT) for its staff:

‘Who can be an author of a publication?

These guidelines provide only the minimum requirement for authorship.

1. Credit: All researchers who have worked on the project being reported are entitled to authorship. Individual(s) may be excluded if (a) they have worked only for a short duration and only for a specific fraction of the task, (b) they left the project and/or institution before the preparation of the first draft of the report and without contributing to any section of the writing.
2. Ranking of authors: The position in the research hierarchy will not be the criterion for ranking. Importance will be given to the extent of’cohtribution made in conceiving the project, work done on it and in writing the report.
3. The contribution of all those who have helped substantially in the project and the preparation of the publication must be appropriately acknowledged.’