Authorship Disputes: How to Prevent and Resolve Them

Ask any journal editor which disputes consume the most time and the answer is rarely data or ethics — it is authorship. Who is on the paper, in what order, and who was left off. These arguments are painful because they mix credit, hierarchy and personal relationships, and because by the time they surface the work is usually finished and everyone is invested. The remedy is almost entirely preventive.

Why disputes happen

• Nobody agreed at the start. Contributions grow and shift; without an early conversation, everyone forms a private expectation.
• Different assumptions about order. Conventions vary by discipline and even by lab.
• Power imbalance. A junior researcher may feel unable to challenge a supervisor who expects to be listed automatically — the root of gift authorship.
• Late contributors. Someone joins for a revision and expects a place; someone leaves the institution and is forgotten.

Prevention: one conversation, written down

At the point the project takes shape — not at submission — agree and record four things:

1. The criteria you will apply. Name them: the ICMJE criteria are the accepted standard in medicine, and require all four conditions to be met.
2. Who is currently expected to be an author, and who will be acknowledged instead.
3. The provisional order, and who will be corresponding author.
4. How you will revisit it — because contributions genuinely change, agree that the list is reviewed before submission.

Keep it as a short shared document. It costs half an hour and prevents the majority of disputes outright.

Use a contribution taxonomy

Recording what each person did — using CRediT roles such as conceptualisation, methodology, formal analysis, writing and supervision — converts a status argument into a factual one. It is far easier to agree on "who ran the analysis" than on "who deserves second place", and most journals now publish these statements anyway.

If a dispute arises anyway

1. Raise it early and in writing, before submission if at all possible. Set out contributions factually against the criteria you agreed.
2. Try internal mediation — a department head, a research-integrity officer, or a neutral senior colleague.
3. Tell the journal if the paper is already submitted. The editor will normally pause consideration; concealing a live dispute is far worse than disclosing it.
4. Expect the institution to decide. Journals do not adjudicate authorship. Following COPE guidance, editors refer substantive disputes to the authors' institutions, which have the evidence and authority.

One practical rule that defuses most cases: every named author must have seen and approved the final version. If someone cannot be shown the paper they are supposedly accountable for, they should not be on it.