Authorship & Contributorship

Authorship must accurately reflect substantial intellectual contributions to the research and manuscript.

Individuals listed as authors should have made meaningful contributions to areas such as:

research conception;
research design;
data collection;
textual or manuscript analysis;
interpretation;
methodology;
analysis;
drafting;
critical revision; or
final approval.

All authors must approve the submitted manuscript and take responsibility for the integrity of their respective contributions.

The journal does not permit:

ghost authorship;
gift authorship;
guest authorship;
honorary authorship; or
artificial intelligence systems to be listed as authors.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the author list and communicating with all co-authors regarding submission and publication.

Where appropriate, authors are encouraged to describe individual contributions using the CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy.

Changes to authorship after submission must be justified and approved by all affected authors.