Who did what?

Abstract

Authorship on scientific publications has become the currency of modern science and a measure of a scientist's participation in the international community. The number of papers a scientist publishes, the journals in which they are published and the position of a scientist's name on the list of authors are all crucial when it comes to promotions, funding and employment decisions. Nevertheless, the attribution of authorship in contemporary academic science has become an increasingly delicate issue. Obvious shortcomings in the system and an inability to react to new developments in science, such as larger research groups and collaborations, have led scientists, editors and science administrators to debate whether the present authorship system should be modified and how best it should operate. > Authorship is the fulfilment of a responsibility Furthermore, the need to produce a long list of publications when applying for positions or funding has further contributed to an inflation in the number of contributors. If group or department leaders put the names of their junior scientists on a paper to give them an advantage in the ‘rat race’ for jobs and money, this is certainly generous, but it ultimately dilutes the work of others. “I think that the one thing that is wrong with the authorship system is when someone becomes an author on a paper to which they have contributed nothing, in other words, honorary authorship,” said Iain Mattaj, Scientific Director of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Heidelberg, Germany) and Executive Editor of The EMBO Journal . > The inflation in authorship is associated with the extensive collaborative dimension that science has assumed This leaves the scientific community with the question of who qualifies as an author. Unfortunately, there is no …