Honorary Authorship: Is There Any Chance to Stop It? Analysis of the Literature and a Personal Opinion

Honorary authorship corresponds to the intentional misrepresentation of credit to an individual whose contributions to a biomedical article do not meet the criteria for authorship established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) [...]

Honorary authorship in high-impact journals in anaesthesia and pain medicine

Enlisting an author on a published paper, whose input was insufficient, is called honorary authorship. The aim of this study is to assess the proportion of honorary authorship in the field of pain medicine. Data were collected from seven high-impact journals. Corresponding authors were sent a survey regarding their awareness on authorship guidelines, the decision-making in authorship and specific contributions made to the surveyed article. We identified two types of honorary authorship: (1) self-perceived honorary authorship, which is measured by asking the corresponding author if honorary authorship was present according to their opinion and (2) International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)-defined honorary authorship, which is honorary authorship based on the guidelines. In total, 1051 mails were sent and 231 responded, leading to a response rate of 22.0%. 81.3% of the respondents were familiar with the ICMJE authorship guidelines, while 59.6% were aware of the issue of honorary authorship. 13.3% of the respondents were employed at a department in which the senior member is automatically included on all manuscripts. The ICMJE-defined honorary authorship was 40%, while self-perceived honorary authorship was 13.5%. There seems to be a high awareness of the ICMJE guidelines among corresponding authors in the field of Pain Medicine. Despite this high awareness, a high proportion of journal articles had honorary authorship, suggesting that authorship guidelines fail to be applied in a significant proportion of the literature.

I, We, and They: A Linguistic and Narrative Exploration of the Authorship Process

Introduction: While authorship plays a powerful role in the academy, research indicates many authors engage in questionable practices like honorary authorship. This suggests that authorship may be a contested space where individuals must exercise agency--a dynamic and emergent process, embedded in context--to negotiate potentially conflicting norms among published criteria, disciplines, and informal practices. This study explores how authors narrate their own and others' agency in making authorship decisions. Method: We conducted a mixed-methods analysis of 24 first authors' accounts of authorship decisions on a recent multi-author paper. Authors included 14 females and 10 males in health professions education (HPE) from U.S. and Canadian institutions (10 assistant, 6 associate, and 8 full professors). Analysis took place in three phases: (1) linguistic analysis of grammatical structures shown to be associated with agency (coding for main clause subjects and verb types); (2) narrative analysis to create a "moral" and "title" for each account; and (3) integration of (1) and (2). Results: Participants narrated other authors most frequently as main clause subjects (n = 191), then themselves (I; n = 151), inanimate nouns (it, the paper; n = 146), and author team (we; n = 105). Three broad types of agency were narrated: distributed (n = 15 participants), focusing on how resources and work were spread across team members; individual (n = 6), focusing on the first author's action; and collaborative (n = 3), focusing on group actions. These three types of agency contained four sub-types, e.g., supported, contested, task-based, negotiated. Discussion: This study highlights the complex and emergent nature of agency narrated by authors when making authorship decisions. Published criteria offer us starting point--the stated rules of the authorship game; this paper offers us a next step--the enacted and narrated approach to the game.

Honorary Authorship in Health Sciences: A Protocol for a Systematic Review of Survey Research

BackgroundHonorary authorship refers to the practice of naming an individual who has made little or no contribution to a publication as an author. Honorary authorship inflates the output estimates of honorary authors and deflates the value of the work by authors who truly merit authorship. This manuscript presents the protocol for a systematic review that will assess the prevalence of five honorary authorship issues in health sciences.MethodsSurveys of authors of scientific publications in health sciences that assess prevalence estimates will be eligible. No selection criteria will be set for the time point for measuring outcomes, the setting, the language of the publication, and the publication status. Eligible manuscripts are searched from inception onwards in PubMed, Lens.org, and Dimensions.ai. Two calibrated authors will independently search, determine eligibility of manuscripts and conduct data extraction. The quality of each review outcome for each eligible manuscript will be assessed with a 14 items checklist developed and piloted for this review. Data will be qualitatively synthesized and quantitative syntheses will be performed where feasible. Criteria for precluding quantitative syntheses were defined a priori. The pooled random effects double arcsine transformed summary event rates of five outcomes on honorary authorship issues with the pertinent 95% confidence intervals will be calculated if these criteria are met. Summary estimates will be displayed after back-transformation. Stata software (Stata Corporation, College Station, Texas, USA) version 16 will be used for all statistical analyses. Statistical heterogeneity will be assessed using Tau2 and Chi2 tests and I2 to quantify inconsistency.DiscussionThe outcomes of the planned systematic review will give insights in the magnitude of honorary authorship in health sciences and could direct new research studies to develop and implement strategies to address this problem. However, the validity of the outcomes could be influenced by low response rates, inadequate research design, weighting issues, and recall bias in the eligible surveys. Systematic review registration This protocol was registered a priori in the Open Science Framework (OSF) link: https://osf.io/5nvar/

Authorship in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Background and Objective According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), authorship should be offered based on fulfilling four criteria. Honorary authorship (HA) is a term used for authors enlisted who did not fulfill these criteria. The objective of this study was to determine the proportion of HA in the field of oral and maxillofacial surgery. Material and Methods In 2020, a twenty-two question survey was sent to corresponding authors of four high-impact journals in the field of oral and maxillofacial surgery. The survey covered (1) demographics, (2) awareness of authorship guidelines and decision-making of authorship, and (3) honorary authorship. Results The response rate was 24.8%. Of the respondents, 81.1% was aware of the issue of guidelines on authorship, while 56.3% was aware of the issue of HA. Yet, 15.5% of the respondents felt that one or more of their co-authors did not deserve authorship based on the ICMJE-guidelines. Conclusion Based on the estimated proportions of HA, attempts should be made by universities, medical journals and individual researchers to further reduce authorship misuse.

Publish or be ethical? Publishing pressure and scientific misconduct in research

The paper reports two studies exploring the relationship between scholars’ self-reported publication pressure and their self-reported scientific misconduct in research. In Study 1 the participants ( N = 423) were scholars representing various disciplines from one big university in Poland. In Study 2 the participants ( N = 31) were exclusively members of the management, such as dean, director, etc. from the same university. In Study 1 the most common reported form of scientific misconduct was honorary authorship. The majority of researchers (71%) reported that they had not violated ethical standards in the past; 3% admitted to scientific misconduct; 51% reported being were aware of colleagues’ scientific misconduct. A small positive correlation between perceived publication pressure and intention to engage in scientific misconduct in the future was found. In Study 2 more than half of the management (52%) reported being aware of researchers’ dishonest practices, the most frequent one of these being honorary authorship. As many as 71% of the participants report observing publication pressure in their subordinates. The primary conclusions are: (1) most scholars are convinced of their morality and predict that they will behave morally in the future; (2) scientific misconduct, particularly minor offenses such as honorary authorship, is frequently observed both by researchers (particularly in their colleagues) and by their managers; (3) researchers experiencing publication pressure report a willingness to engage in scientific misconduct in the future.

Publish or be ethical? Publishing pressure and scientific misconduct in research

The article aims to examine the relationship between scholars’ self-reported publication pressure and their self-reported scientific misconduct in research. In Study 1 the participants (N = 423) were scholars representing various disciplines from one big university in Poland. In Study 2 the participants (N = 31) were exclusively members of the management, such as dean, director, etc. from the same university. In Study 1 the most popular scientific misconduct was honorary authorship. The majority of researchers (71%) reported that they definitely had not violated ethical standards in the past, but 51% of the participants were aware of their colleagues’ scientific misconduct. Participants reported a significantly higher level of dishonesty among others compared to their scientific misconduct. Individuals observing strong publication pressure in their colleagues were also aware of their colleagues’ practices violating ethical standards. A small positive correlation between perceived publication pressure and intention to engage in scientific misconduct in the future was found. Only 3% of the participants stated that the current system of evaluating their research work was fully satisfactory. In Study 2 more than half of the management (52%) were aware of researchers’ dishonest practices, the most frequent one of these being honorary authorship. As many as 71% of the participants observe publication pressure in their subordinates. Three main conclusions are: 1) most scholars are convinced of their morality and predict that they will behave morally in the future; 2) our results attest to the problem of scientific misconduct, particularly minor offenses such as honorary authorship, observed both by researchers themselves (particularly in their colleagues) and by their superiors; 3) researchers experiencing publication pressure report an intention to engage in scientific misconduct in the future, and individuals in managerial positions observing publication pressure in their subordinates also observe their dishonest research practices.

Honorary authorship in Geriatric Literature: do authors adhere to the ICMJE-guidelines?

To protect appropriate authorship, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) formulated a guideline on authorship. Researchers not fulfilling these criteria and still enlisted as author are seen as honorary authors (HA). The objective of this study is to assess authorship decision making and the proportion of HA in journals in the field of geriatrics and gerontology. Corresponding authors of six highimpact journals in geriatrics and gerontology were sent a survey. The survey consisted of three parts: i) demographics of the respondent; ii) awareness of authorship guidelines; and iii) authorship decisions made for the paper they are authors of. Respondents were also asked if one of their coauthors does not deserve authorship. This is defined as self-perceived HA. Furthermore, respondents were asked if any of their co-authors only performed tasks from a list of non-authorship tasks. This is defined as ICMJE-defined HA. Of the 1592 contacted authors, 528 filled in a survey (response rate 33.2%). 84.4% was aware of the ICMJE-guidelines, but 44.2% was unaware of the issue of HA. The proportion of self-perceived HA was 12.7%. Independent factors associated with more self-perceived HA were having a senior member automatically enlisted as coauthor [odds ratio (OR) 3.4, 95%confidence interval (CI) 1.8 to 6.4] and have gotten the suggestion to include an HA (OR 11.1, 95% CI 4.4 to 27.9). The proportion of ICMJE defined HA was 39.3%. The journal surveyed (OR 1.2, 1.0 to 1.3) was associated with more, and awareness of the ICMJE-guidelines (OR 0.5, 95% CI 0.3 to 0.9) was associated with less ICMJE-defined HA respectively. Having a senior member automatically enlisted as co-author (OR 2.1 95% CI 1.3 to 3.4) and having anyone suggest to include an HA (OR 4.8 95% CI 1.8 to 12.8) were also associated with more ICMJE-defined HA. More than one out of ten of the corresponding authors thinks that based on the ICMJE-guidelines, one or more of their coauthors did not deserve authorship. A stricter journal policy and more awareness of the ICMJE-guidelines could help reduce the proportion of HA.