Reaching out for scientific legacy: how to define authorship in academic publishing.

Abstract

Scientists devote their careers to the search for new discoveries, which turn into public knowledge once published as a scientific article or as an academic book. This exciting curiosity-driven search for knowledge enthuses most scientists and often occupies an exceptionally large part of a scientist’s life. There are now many ways of publicising scientific discoveries, ranging from the print media to electronic publishing such as video documentary or voice podcast, all of which seek to preserve knowledge beyond human lifetime. Still, the principal way of preserving scientific discoveries for the future is the scientific article published in peerreviewed a scientific journal (Kronick, 1990; Riisgard, 2000; Thatje, 2010). For the sake of this essay, I will hereafter refer to the peer reviewed scientific article as the Bpaper . What is a scientific legacy? The reputation of a scientist is based on the quality of a paper bearing the scientist’s name and its impact on the respective subject area in which the paper is published. The number of papers—and their quality—published by a scientist helps building academic reputation and influences a peer’s professional career. Scientific legacy describes the circumstance when a scientist’s work and name remains recognised beyond lifetime if not for generations to come. It is often the body of many published works that is of legacy building nature. Consequently, a Bname on a paper^, as such, contributes to a scientist’s potential to building legacy. Therefore, scientific legacy is about future generations of scientists recognising the contributions of their predecessors. A good, if not groundbreaking, paper influences a research area for many years to come if not decades, and a scientist’s dream is an idea-driven discovery, which governs academia well beyond human lifetime. In brief, authorship of an article declares ownership and is a claim of potential legacy. We publish the results of research for various reasons: for the joy of it, to inform peers, for the advancement of science and society, as well as to build reputation and legacy. BPublish or perish^ is another phrase governing a scientist’s life, and especially that of the young scientist; presenting a long list of scientific papers in most areas of research is mandatory and influences a scientist’s future as an academic or researcher. Building reputation precedes leaving a legacy. We have seen a steep increase in publishing activities in recent decades, as science is an important driver of the developments of both economy and society. Most countries increasingly invest into a vast array of research reflecting on each country’s developmental state, which has led to the number of scientists increase globally. Many areas of research develop rapidly e.g. the medical sciences, leading to unprecedented advances benefitting society. As a result, scientists from many disciplines tend to publish more papers than ever before, the reasons for which are diverse. There are many types of scientific papers (e.g. raging from short Communications to Original article formats) and the list of authors on a paper tends to be longer than what it used to be in most areas of research. The single author paper is, overall, rather rare these days, and also because research has become widely inter-disciplinary. In summary, scientists mainly contribute to papers as coauthors rather than be the lead author. The number of authors on a paper is often driven by the impact factor (or quality) of the journal in which the article is published. Journals that have a high impact factor, which is based on the mean number of citations each article received (Riisgard, 2000; Thatje, 2010), * Sven Thatje nawi@soton.ac.uk