Fair Attribution Guidance
Recognition of colleagues on research outputs
The University of York recognises the vital contributions that research enabling, technical and specialist skills staff make to research, innovation and knowledge exchange. This includes, but is not limited to, the work of those in roles such as Archivists, Curators, Data Scientists, Engineers, PRISMs (Professional Research Investment Strategy Managers), Research Managers and Administrators, Research Software Engineers, and Technicians. Early career, or less experienced researchers, including postgraduate researchers, research assistants and postdoctoral research associates, are also integral to our research efforts. Colleagues in such roles underpin research excellence at York, contributing their expertise to the production of knowledge as active and collaborative members of research teams.
We are committed to ensuring the contributions of all research team members are appropriately and visibly recognised and attributed through inclusion on research outputs, for example in publications, presentations, posters, reports, webpages, creative outputs, and patents.
The following guidance aims to help us establish an open, transparent and consistent approach to attribution on outputs across the institution. It is designed to help everyone in our research community to get a clearer sense of when it is appropriate to recognise the contribution of an individual to a research output. It also aims to help enact our commitment to ensuring the skills, roles and careers of everyone who contributes to research are recognised, respected, supported, and developed.
Policy framework
The University of York’s Code of Practice on Research Integrity is the overarching policy framework setting the standards for research governance and practices. The purpose of the University’s Code of Practice on Research Integrity is to ensure those involved in research activities under the University’s auspices are well-informed and compliant with current legal, regulatory, and institutional principles and expectations when planning, conducting, and disseminating their work. Section 4.2 details the policy position on Authorship, and notes: “The University expects anyone listed as an author to accept personal responsibility for ensuring that they are familiar with the contents of the paper, and that they can identify their contributions to it. Contributions appropriate to authorship may include the origination of the research idea or design, undertaking a substantial part of the work or a significant contribution to the analysis, and writing of the research output. If an individual has made a contribution of this sort, they should be included as an author unless they have withheld their permission, in which case their contribution should be noted as appropriate in the acknowledgements.” The Research Publications and Open Access Policy also states: “Research publications should acknowledge all authors and contributors in line with the University’s guidance on fair attribution. The University of York, and any research funding, should also be acknowledged following best practice and using standard persistent identifiers wherever possible.”
This guidance augments the policy to help support the implementation of fair attribution in practice.
General principles
The University expects the following general principles to be adhered to:
- The University supports the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) system for describing and attributing the specific contributions of different team members. Use of the CRediT system is encouraged wherever possible. Where publishers do not enable the CRediT system, acknowledgement should be made within the output text where this is allowed by the publisher.
- All research outputs which use technical or specialist facilities or services within the University should acknowledge this via the following wording: “The Authors acknowledge use of [insert equipment or service used] supplied by/within the [team/facility name and department if appropriate], University of York.”
- Outputs which include a more substantial or intellectual contribution by a colleague should be acknowledged accordingly. Examples of appropriate attribution are given below.
- All staff and students should read and agree to the Fair Attribution Guidance prior to starting their research. Postgraduate researchers should review the guidance and the Research Publications and Open Access Policy with their supervisors and confirm this via the check box in SkillsForge.
- Reference to the fair attribution guidance should be included in induction of all new research staff and consideration of fair attribution is strongly encouraged within research units and teams.
- In addition to research staff and students, this guidance also applies to individuals and groups outside of the immediate research team who have contributed to an output. Examples include public contributors, patients and carers, or community groups who have been involved in the project at any stage of the research process.
- Where a decision is made to include an individual as a co-author, they should be involved in the writing and editing process. Co-authors should be appropriately supported to be actively engaged in the academic writing and editing process where this is unfamiliar to them, and the final output should be made available to them.
Applying the guidance
Researchers may interact with colleagues in enabling, specialist, technical, early career or public contribution research roles to support and develop their research in a number of ways. Fair attribution is not an exact science, and there are grey areas which research team members will need to navigate in order to make decisions about fair attribution and acknowledgement on research outputs. Attribution practices may vary across disciplines, and some of the principles in this document may be unfamiliar to researchers in certain areas. Much work on fair attribution across the sector has evolved from efforts to recognise the work of technicians, in alignment with the Technician Commitment, and this guidance aims to broaden the focus and enable fair attribution for all colleagues who contribute to research outputs.
As a general guide, we identify three kinds of contribution as the basis for considering fair attribution:
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Indirect contribution |
Direct routine contribution |
Intellectual contribution |
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e.g. training on use of equipment or technique |
e.g. collection of research materials or data analysis |
e.g. contributing intellectual input to the research design or output creation |
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Acknowledge the facility or service |
Acknowledge the individual(s) and service |
Acknowledge the individual(s) and service and consider whether they should be a co-author |
Specific examples to help guide research staff and students in identifying the appropriate attribution method are also provided below, using the CRediT roles system:
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Head of the Building Research and Innovation Capacity Team
Example: A Research Development Manager (RDM) assists a project team to come up with new ideas for a funding call. The team decides to pursue an idea suggested by the RDM and subsequently publishes an article on the research.
Attribution: The RDM should be acknowledged by name: “The Authors/applicants would like to acknowledge the help of [name] at the University of York in the conceptualisation of this project”. Consideration of whether the individual should be included in the list of authors and in discussions around drafting the output would be appropriate, depending on the level of their contribution.
Example: An archivist collates materials on a specified topic for a research project.
Attribution: The archivist should be acknowledged by name: “The Author(s) would like to acknowledge the help of [name] and the use of [service or facilities] within the [name of team/facility and department], at the University of York, in collating/curating archive materials.”
Example: A curator provides creative and contextual input while identifying research material from collections.
Attribution: The curator should be acknowledged by name: “The Author(s) would like to acknowledge the help of [name] and the use of [service or facilities] within the [name of team/facility and department], at the University of York, in collating/curating archive materials.” The authors should consider whether the contribution to the output warrants inclusion in the list of author(s).
Example: A technician, or team of technicians, provides data interpretation and analysis of an experiment or series of experiments.
Attribution: The technician(s) assisting with the experiment should be acknowledged by name: “The Authors would like to acknowledge the help of [name] and the use of [service or facilities] within the [name of team/facility and department], at the University of York in the interpretation/analysis of experiments.”
Example: A researcher within the team who has not contributed to the background research or creation of the specific output was instrumental in acquiring the funding to enable the research.
Attribution: The researcher should be acknowledged by name: “The Authors would like to acknowledge the help of [name] and the use of [service or facilities] within the [name of team/facility and department], at the University of York in acquiring the funding which enabled this work.”
Note: Funders and sponsors who directly supported the research which led to the output should be acknowledged on outputs as outlined in the conditions of grant awards.
Example: A technician, or team of technicians, obtains data for a single experiment and performs routine characterisation sending data to the user to analyse.
Attribution: The technician(s) assisting with the experiment should be acknowledged by name: “The Authors would like to acknowledge the help of [name] and the use of [service or characterisation facilities] within the [name of team/facility and department], at the University of York.”
Example: A technician, or team of technicians, supports the experimental design of the research.
Attribution: As the research has required intellectual contribution from one or more technicians, these individuals should be included in the author list of the resultant output and included in discussions during drafting and submission.
Example: A Project Manager/Professional Research Investment and Strategy Manager (PRISM) makes a significant contribution to the delivery of research through their organisation and coordination of research activities and collaborators.
Attribution: The PRISM should be acknowledged by name: “The Authors would like to acknowledge the help of [name] at the University of York for their management of this research programme.”
Example: A Public Patient Involvement Adviser (e.g. from the Involvement@York team) provides support with identifying, approaching and supporting members of the public (including patients, carers, service users and families) to be involved in a research project.
Attribution: The individuals should be acknowledged by name: “The Authors would like to acknowledge the involvement and contribution of [name] within the [team or department], at the University of York, in coordinating the patient involvement for this research.”
Example: A technician or team of technicians provides materials and training on the equipment used to conduct the research.
Attribution: The service or facility should be acknowledged, as per the general principles.
Example: A Research Software Engineer develops software which is fundamental to the creation of the research on which an output is based.
Attribution: The individual(s) should be acknowledged by name: “The Authors would like to acknowledge the help of [name] and the use of [service or characterisation facilities] within the [name of team/facility and department], at the University of York, in the creation of software to enable this research.”
Note: The authors should consider whether the software development should be considered an intellectual contribution to the research, and therefore whether the developer should be considered a co-author.
Example: A project lead/PI provides leadership and oversight of the research activity.
Attribution: The project lead/PI should be acknowledged by name: “The Authors would like to acknowledge the support and direction of the project lead [name], at the University of York.”
Example: An external mentor provides the author(s) with guidance on the research activity’s planning or execution.
Attribution: The mentor should be acknowledged by name: “The Authors would like to acknowledge the support and direction of [name], at [institution].”
Example: A technician provides verification of the replication or reproducibility of results or experiments.
Attribution: The individual(s) should be acknowledged by name: “The Authors would like to acknowledge the help of [name] and the use of [service or characterisation facilities] within the [name of team/facility and department], at the University of York, in the validation and verification of results.”
Example: A Research Assistant supports the preparation and presentation of a poster through data visualisation or presentation.
Attribution: The Research Assistant should be acknowledged by name on the poster.
Example: A postgraduate student writes sections of the research output.
Attribution: The student should be included in the author list of the resultant output and included in discussions during drafting and submission.
Example: A postdoctoral researcher critically reviews an output for fellow members of their research team and suggests edits to the text and commentary on the overall output.
Attribution: The researcher should be acknowledged by name: “The Authors would like to acknowledge the input of [name], at the University of York in reviewing and editing.”
Note: If the new directions and contributed text amount to an intellectual contribution to the output, the authors should consider naming the researcher as a co-author.
Whilst this guidance aims to encourage a fair and equitable environment to enable appropriate reflection and action on attribution processes and decision making, it must be acknowledged that the individuals that this guidance is designed to support are typically in a less privileged or powerful position within the research community. There will also be variability between individuals’ ability to comfortably raise issues around attribution, potentially leading to inequitable outcomes.
Reaching collective agreement on attribution during the establishment of new research projects or teams can help to mitigate this. Project ethos documents, group discussions on values and processes, or the creation of ‘lab handbooks’ are useful ways to raise fair attribution at an early stage.
If issues arise around fair attribution during a research project they should be addressed as soon as possible.
If a work is published and an individual feels their contribution to the work has not been recognised appropriately, the individual should raise this with their line manager (if they have one) or with the project PI in the first instance. Where a team has agreed at the outset of a project a procedure to address and resolve such disputes (for example, through open discussion in a team meeting) this process should be followed. Where neither course of action is deemed acceptable (for example, if the dispute is with the individual’s line manager or PI) or cannot be resolved with the line manager/PI or within the immediate research team, the process for authorship disputes should be followed (see section 4.2.5 of the Research Integrity Code of Practice for further details).
We would like to acknowledge the support and resources for fair attribution at other universities including Durham, Nottingham and Leeds, which we have used as a basis for developing this guidance.
Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash
Document owner: Research Culture Working Group
Approved by University Research Committee: 26 September 2024
Review cycle: 1 year, thereafter 3 years
Date of next review: 2025, 2028
Contact us
Megan McLoughlin
Head of the Building Research and Innovation Capacity Team