IUMS Journals — Authorship

1 Overview: credit, responsibility & transparency

Being named as an author on a scholarly article signals that a person has made a substantial intellectual contribution and is willing to stand behind the work. Authorship can influence careers, evaluation, and funding decisions, so it must be based on clear, consistent criteria rather than hierarchy, custom, or courtesy.

To align with widely accepted practice in medical and health sciences, IUMS journals use two complementary frameworks. The authorship recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) set out who should be listed as an author, while the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) describes what each person did in the project. Used together, they support a fairer and more transparent account of contributions in multi-disciplinary and multi-centre research.

2 ICMJE-based authorship criteria at IUMS

IUMS journals require that everyone who appears in the author by-line meets all of the following conditions, adapted from the ICMJE’s widely used guidance on authorship in biomedical journals:

Substantial intellectual contribution. The person helped shape at least one key intellectual element of the work, such as designing the study, developing the methodology, collecting or generating central data, carrying out important analyses, or interpreting the results in ways that influence the conclusions.
Real involvement in writing or revising. The person took part in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically, improving the accuracy, logic, structure, or completeness of the scientific content. Simply giving general comments or approving a version written by others is not sufficient.
Approval of the final version. Before submission, each author has seen the final manuscript (including major revisions) and has explicitly agreed that it fairly reflects their contribution and can be submitted in its present form.
Responsibility and accountability. Each author is willing to take responsibility for their own contribution and to cooperate if questions arise about the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even areas they did not personally handle.

Meeting only some of these conditions does not usually justify authorship. Equally, people who satisfy all four criteria should normally be offered authorship. Roles such as general supervision, routine data collection, or obtaining funding do not, on their own, make someone an author unless they are combined with the substantive intellectual engagement and accountability set out above.

3 CRediT contributor roles used in IUMS journals

To give a more fine-grained picture of contributions, IUMS journals use the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) framework. CRediT defines 14 standard roles that cover common activities in research, from shaping the idea and designing the study to managing data, writing the manuscript, and securing funding. These roles are collected during submission and may be displayed with the published article where the journal platform supports it.

A contributor can be associated with one or more roles, and a single role may involve several people. Declared roles help readers, reviewers and institutions understand the nature of each person’s involvement but do not, by themselves, determine who qualifies as an author.

3.1 Summary of CRediT roles (as implemented by IUMS)

CRediT role	How IUMS interprets this contribution
Conceptualization	Framing the overall research idea or question, defining the main objectives and deciding which problems the study should address.
Methodology	Designing the overall approach, including study design, experimental procedures, measurement strategies or analytic frameworks.
Investigation	Carrying out the practical work of the study, such as recruiting participants, performing experiments or collecting primary data.
Data curation	Organising, cleaning, documenting and preserving datasets (and associated code) so they remain understandable and usable over time.
Formal analysis	Applying statistical, computational or other analytic techniques to examine data and produce the results reported in the article.
Software	Developing, testing or adapting software, code or pipelines that are essential for data collection, analysis or visualisation.
Validation	Checking the robustness and reproducibility of data, methods, tools or models, for example by re-running analyses or performing sensitivity checks.
Resources	Providing critical materials, patients, samples, infrastructure, instrumentation, data sources or other assets that make the work possible.
Visualization	Designing and producing figures, graphs and other visual elements that accurately communicate the results.
Writing – original draft	Preparing the initial version of the manuscript or substantial sections of it, such as methods, results or discussion.
Writing – review & editing	Revising the manuscript at later stages, integrating feedback, restructuring content and improving clarity and coherence.
Supervision	Providing overall scientific leadership, oversight and mentorship for the project.
Project administration	Coordinating day-to-day project activities, timelines, documentation and compliance with protocols.
Funding acquisition	Securing financial support that directly underpins the work reported in the article (for example, grants or contracts).

Where feasible, contributors may also indicate whether their involvement in a given role was leading, equal or supporting. These descriptors can clarify relative contribution but do not change the basic authorship thresholds.

4 How ICMJE criteria & CRediT roles work together

Authorship is a threshold, not a sliding scale. Only contributors who fulfil all four ICMJE-style conditions should be listed as authors. Having one or more CRediT roles such as “Resources” or “Funding acquisition” alone is not enough if the other authorship conditions are not also met.
CRediT describes contributions for both authors and non-authors. A person may have several CRediT roles but still fall short of authorship criteria—for example, if they helped collect data but did not contribute to analysis, interpretation or writing. In such cases, they should usually be recognised in the acknowledgments or contributor lists rather than as authors.
The goal is transparency. Combining explicit authorship criteria with a published contributorship statement helps readers, reviewers and institutions see who is ultimately accountable for the article and how work was distributed across the team, which is especially important in large collaborations.

5 Contributorship & recognition of non-author roles

Research depends on people whose input is important but does not satisfy all authorship criteria—for example, technical staff, research nurses, data entry personnel, librarians, administrators and colleagues who give occasional comments without sustained involvement in analysis or writing. IUMS journals expect such contributions to be acknowledged openly, in ways that are proportionate and accurate.

Non-author contributors can typically be recognised in two main ways:

Acknowledgments section. With the individual’s consent, teams may name contributors and briefly describe their role (for example, “technical assistance”, “data collection support”, or “language editing”). This allows contributions to be visible without overstating responsibility.
Group or collaborator lists. In large or multi-site studies, it may be appropriate to list collaborators or site investigators separately—such as in an appendix or supplementary file—even when they are not all authors. The format should clearly distinguish named authors from acknowledged contributors.

Professional medical writing, editorial support or statistical consultancy must always be disclosed, including who provided the service and who funded it, to reduce the risk of hidden influence or ghost authorship. Non-human tools such as generative AI systems cannot be listed as authors. When such tools are used in the research or manuscript preparation, their role should be described transparently in line with the IUMS policy on AI and digital tools.

6 Author order & corresponding author responsibilities

Conventions around author order vary across fields. In some areas, first and last authorship carry particular weight; in others, alphabetical order is used for collaborators who contributed equally. It is the responsibility of the research team—not the journal—to agree on an order that fairly reflects contributions and disciplinary practice before submission.

Every article must designate at least one corresponding author. This person:

acts as the primary contact point with the journal before and after publication;
coordinates communication among co-authors and ensures that all authors have seen and approved the final manuscript;
confirms that each listed author meets the ICMJE-based authorship criteria; and
oversees the accurate reporting of disclosures, including funding sources, ethics approvals and conflicts of interest.

In some large or international collaborations, journals may allow more than one corresponding author. When this is the case, the respective roles should be clearly explained, and at least one stable email address should be provided for readers who may wish to contact the authors after publication. Serving as corresponding author does not automatically imply a greater scientific contribution than that of other authors.

7 Changes in authorship after submission

The author list should normally be agreed before submission. However, genuine reasons for change can arise, such as substantial new contributions during revision. Because authorship affects credit and accountability, IUMS journals apply a strict process to any request to add, remove or reorder authors once a manuscript has entered the editorial system.

Requests for changes must be supported by:

a clear explanation for the proposed modification; and
written confirmation from all current and proposed authors—including those being added or removed—that they agree to the revised author list.

Journals may ask for signed statements, coordinated emails from institutional accounts, or other documentation to verify agreement. Requests that appear to introduce honorary authors, to remove authors without their consent, or to adjust the list in response to internal disputes rather than actual contributions may be declined.

Changes requested after acceptance or publication are considered exceptional and may require consultation with the authors’ institutions. If a change is approved at that stage, the journal will usually issue a formal correction that records both the previous and updated author lists and the date of the change.

8 Group, consortium & multi-centre authorship

Many IUMS journals publish work from research networks, consortia, and multi-centre collaborations. In these settings, it is essential that accountability and recognition remain clear despite the larger number of contributors.

Articles may be published under a group or consortium name, with individual authors listed on the by-line or in a dedicated section or appendix. However, everyone identified as an author must still meet the ICMJE-based criteria, including approving the final manuscript and sharing responsibility for its integrity.

A contributorship statement should specify which individuals played key roles in conceptualisation, design, data collection, analysis and writing. Large collaborations are strongly encouraged to agree and document their own authorship policies early in the project. Where such local policies are compatible with IUMS standards and have been endorsed by all partners, editors will normally respect them while still ensuring that the published record is accurate and transparent.

9 Names, affiliations & persistent identifiers

Authors should provide their name in the form they intend to use consistently in academic publications, together with their primary affiliation at the time of the research or submission, according to the journal’s conventions. Affiliations typically include department, institution, city and country. If an author has moved since the work was carried out, a current address can be added in addition to the original affiliation.

IUMS journals encourage authors to supply ORCID iDs and, where relevant, institutional identifiers. Persistent identifiers help distinguish researchers with similar names and allow publications to be linked more reliably to author profiles, funding information and evaluation systems.

If errors in names or affiliations are discovered after publication, authors should notify the journal promptly so that a correction can be considered. Keeping metadata accurate is an important part of maintaining a trustworthy scholarly record.

10 Acknowledgments, funding & writing assistance

The acknowledgments section allows research teams to recognise contributions that fall short of authorship but still merit credit. Individuals should only be named with their permission, and descriptions of their roles should be factual and proportionate. Collective acknowledgments—for example recognising a clinical unit or support team—may be appropriate when many people have contributed in similar ways.

All relevant financial and material support must be disclosed, either in a funding statement or in the acknowledgments. This includes grant numbers, institutional support, provision of drugs or equipment, and coverage of article processing charges where applicable. If medical writing, language editing or statistical consultancy has been provided by external professionals, the nature of the support and the source of funding should be stated clearly.

Transparent acknowledgments help readers distinguish authorship from other forms of support and reduce the risk of undisclosed influence on the published record.

11 Authorship disputes & suspected misconduct

Disputes over authorship can arise for many reasons, including changes in team membership, unclear expectations at the start of a project, or differing views of what counts as a substantial contribution. IUMS encourages research groups to discuss authorship early, to keep records of agreements, and to review them if project plans change. In most cases, disagreements should be resolved within the team or with the help of the authors’ institutions.

When an unresolved dispute directly affects a manuscript under consideration or a published article in an IUMS journal, editors should be informed. They may pause the editorial process, ask each author to describe their contribution in writing, or seek advice from institutional research integrity offices.

Where there is credible evidence of serious authorship misconduct—such as systematic exclusion of qualifying contributors (ghost authorship), addition of individuals who did not qualify (gift or guest authorship), or falsification of authorship statements—journals may involve institutions formally and take editorial action. Possible outcomes include rejection of a manuscript, publication of a correction or expression of concern, or, in severe cases, retraction of a published article.

Knowingly providing false or misleading information about authorship, contributorship or funding is a breach of this policy and of broader research integrity standards and may lead to restrictions on future submissions and notification of relevant institutions or oversight bodies.

12 Contact & queries

Questions about this authorship and contributorship policy, or concerns about how it has been applied to a particular manuscript or published article, may be sent to the relevant journal’s editorial office or to the IUMS journals office at journals@iums.ac.ir. Please include the journal name, the manuscript or article identifier, and a concise description of your query so that it can be reviewed promptly and fairly.