Nature Materials gets to grips with the issue of authorship this month, in a freely available Editorial (Nature Materials 7, 91; 2008) about international guidelines that define authorship as “limited to those who have made a significant scientific contribution to the concept, design, execution, or interpretation of the research study”. This definition, used by many journals in their author guidelines, becomes imprecise in some circumstances, as identified in the Nature Materials editorial:

“A classic example is the case in which an experimental facility has been used to obtain some of the data. Without the work of scientists employed to run that facility those results could not be obtained. But is their contribution to the specific work enough to warrant authorship, or would acknowledgements be more appropriate? What about the director of the facility? Should the contribution of technicians warrant authorship in general? What about collaborators that helped obtain funding that was used for the work? And what about reviewers, who in some cases substantially help improve a paper, but whose contribution is mainly editorial?” The Editorial points out the difficulties in implementing clear-cut rules, but urges institutions not only to clarify and unify codes of conduct, but also to ensure that the scientists they employ and/or fund appreciate their importance.

It is the policy of the Nature journals to encourage co-authors of papers to specify their individual contributions. Full details are provided at our authors’ and reviewers’ website.

The full-text of the Nature Materials Editorial can be read here.