Who takes credit and assumes accountability for published scientific scholarship are critical issues – for individual careers, for research institutions, for the scientific community and, importantly, for the trustworthiness of science itself. What constitutes a contribution worthy of authorship should be determined by who has accountability for the research, argues an article published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) , which says that all who claim the credit implied by authorship must assume that accountability. The authors say that three principles form the foundation for “responsible authorship” – transparency, credit, and accountability.
In an effort to protect the integrity of scientific publications, a multidisciplinary team of scholars, scientists, and journal editors center these norms in a proposed set of authorship recommendations in their new article, writing: “A responsible authorship culture requires a principle-based reflection by research teams on what it means to be an author with support and encouragement from research institutions. Accordingly, we propose three interconnected principles that form the foundation for responsible authorship: transparency, credit, and accountability.”
The article is a byproduct of a committee of the Strategic Council of the National Academy of Sciences, led by the article’s lead author, Véronique Kiermer , chief scientific officer of PLOS, the Public Library of Science.
The co-authors include Magdalena Skipper, editor in chief of the journal Nature; Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, editor in chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and JAMA Network; Kathleen Hall Jamieson , director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania and professor of communication at Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication; and APPC program coordinator Sofie Adams, who conducted research on authorship guidelines promulgated by nearly 150 top-tier U.S. research universities.
In a 2024 review, the researchers found that nearly all of the top-tier (R1) research institutions post authorship guidelines, but just 42% explicitly associate authorship credit with accountability. In addition, an examination of journal authorship guidelines found “considerable variability in how the journals formulate them,” the article notes.
The article recommends that: (1) authorship decisions be anchored in “transparency, credit, and accountability”; (2) a fair and robust process for conversations about authorship, including author order, is established; and (3) descriptions of contributions are transparent.
The principles are designed to address issues inherent in today’s conflicts over authorship, including several harmful practices identified by a 2017 National Academies report : gift or honorific authorship, ghost authorship, and coercive authorship.
In addition, the authors note, traditional authorship criteria have not evolved to encompass the challenges of today’s research practices. “The way research is conducted is always evolving and authorship habits need to evolve accordingly,” Kiermer said. “Only a principle-based approach can stand the test of time.”
Today’s research practices involve large, multidisciplinary teams in which “every author cannot always realistically be accountable for all aspects of the work and every author may not necessarily have participated in drafting the article or have the expertise to critically review the entire manuscript,” the article says. Even so, “all authors who deserve credit must remain accountable for their own contributions” and “at least some authors must take responsibility to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented.”
The authors call on all who influence incentives and oversight in science – including research institutions, journals, and scholarly societies – to join in the effort to create “a responsible authorship culture,” which is “the cornerstone of a responsible research enterprise.”
“Creating a responsible authorship culture in science: Anchoring authorship practices in principles of transparency, credit, and accountability,” was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on March 11, 2026. The paper was authored by a working group that included researchers at different career stages, journal editors, representatives of research institutions, and scholars of authorship. In addition to the aforementioned researchers, the article was also co-authored by Yensi Flores Bueso (University College Cork, Ireland, and University of Washington); Joerg Heber (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory); Mohammad Hosseini (Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine); Ana Marušić (University of Split School of Medicine, Croatia); Beau Nielsen (National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Strategic Council for Research Excellence, Integrity, and Trust); Geeta K. Swamy (Duke University); and Susan M. Wolf (University of Minnesota).
Apart from Adams and Nielsen, the authors are members of a working group convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Strategic Council for Research Excellence, Integrity, and Trust ; however, the paper is neither an official publication of the National Academies nor of the Strategic Council.
The Annenberg Public Policy Center was established in 1993 to educate the public and policy makers about communication’s role in advancing public understanding of political, science, and health issues at the local, state, and federal levels.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Creating a responsible authorship culture in science: Anchoring authorship practices in principles of transparency, credit, and accountability
11-Mar-2026