1. Purpose and Scope
AMG Transcend Association requires authorship to reflect genuine intellectual contribution, appropriate scholarly credit, and responsibility for submitted and published work.
This policy establishes publisher-level principles concerning authorship eligibility, contributorship, corresponding-author responsibilities, inappropriate authorship practices, changes in authorship, authorship disputes, and accountability across the journals published by AMG Transcend Association.
Individual journals may establish additional procedural, documentation, or contributorship requirements appropriate to their aims and scope, article types, disciplines, and editorial workflows.
2. Criteria for Authorship
Authorship must be based on meaningful intellectual contribution to the work and acceptance of responsibility for the submitted and published content.
To qualify as an author, an individual must meet all of the following conditions:
- Substantial contribution to the work, including contribution to the conception or design of the study, acquisition or generation of data involving scientific judgment and responsibility, or analysis or interpretation of data;
- Contribution to the manuscript, through drafting the work or critically revising it for important intellectual content;
- Final approval, by reviewing and approving the version to be submitted and, where applicable, the final version to be published;
- Accountability, by agreeing to take responsibility for their contributions and to cooperate in addressing legitimate questions concerning the accuracy, integrity, ethics, or reliability of the work.
All individuals listed as authors must satisfy the applicable authorship criteria.
Individuals who meet the criteria for authorship should not be omitted from the author list.
Authorship must not be assigned solely on the basis of status, seniority, institutional position, funding acquisition, general supervision, administrative authority, or other considerations unrelated to qualifying intellectual contribution and responsibility.
3. Author Accountability
Authorship represents both scholarly credit and responsibility.
Each author must be able to take responsibility for their own contributions and must have sufficient understanding of the overall nature and conclusions of the work to have reasonable confidence in its integrity.
Authors must cooperate in addressing legitimate questions concerning the accuracy, ethics, integrity, provenance, or reliability of submitted or published work, including questions arising after publication.
Where a concern relates primarily to a specific component of a study, the author or authors responsible for that component may be asked to provide clarification, documentation, data, original materials, or other relevant information.
Differences in individual contributions do not remove the shared obligation of all authors to cooperate in resolving significant questions affecting the integrity or reliability of the published work.
4. Contributors Who Do Not Qualify for Authorship
Contributions that do not independently satisfy the criteria for authorship should be recognized appropriately rather than used to justify authorship.
Such contributions may include:
- routine technical assistance;
- administrative or logistical support;
- language editing or proofreading alone;
- acquisition of funding alone;
- general supervision without substantial intellectual contribution;
- provision of equipment, materials, facilities, or routine services;
- other forms of assistance that do not meet the full authorship criteria.
Individuals or organizations providing such contributions may be identified in an Acknowledgments or Contributor section, where appropriate and subject to any applicable consent or disclosure requirements.
Acknowledgment does not confer authorship status or the responsibilities associated with authorship.
5. Author Contribution Statements
Journals may require authors to provide an Author Contributions statement describing the roles performed by individual authors.
Where contribution statements are required, they must accurately reflect the work performed and must be approved by the authors concerned.
Journals may use the CRediT Contributor Role Taxonomy or another suitable structured system to describe individual contributions.
Contributor-role terminology supports transparency but does not independently determine whether an individual qualifies for authorship.
Performing a recognized contributor role does not necessarily establish authorship unless the applicable authorship criteria are also satisfied.
Contribution statements must not be used to conceal inappropriate authorship arrangements, assign roles that were not actually performed, or misrepresent the nature or extent of individual contributions.
6. Order of Authors
The order in which authors are listed must be determined by the author group according to the contributions, disciplinary conventions, and agreements relevant to the work.
The journal and publisher do not determine authorship order on behalf of research teams.
All authors must agree to the author list and its order before submission.
Where equal contribution, shared first authorship, shared senior authorship, or another form of shared responsibility is declared, such statements must accurately reflect the contributions concerned and may be published where permitted by the relevant journal.
7. Corresponding Author Responsibilities
The corresponding author serves as the principal communication link between the author group and the journal.
The corresponding author is responsible for:
- coordinating communication with the journal during submission, peer review, revision, production, and, where necessary, after publication;
- ensuring that all listed authors are aware of and have agreed to the submission;
- confirming that all authors have reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript and final version as required;
- coordinating agreement concerning the author list and author order;
- communicating editorial requests and relevant correspondence to co-authors;
- coordinating responses to reviewer and editor comments;
- coordinating the provision of required declarations, including authorship, contributions, funding, competing interests, ethical approvals, informed consent, and other relevant statements;
- notifying the journal of relevant changes or significant problems affecting the manuscript or author group;
- coordinating responses to legitimate post-publication questions where appropriate.
The corresponding author’s coordinating role does not confer greater authorship status or scientific credit and does not transfer to that individual sole responsibility for contributions made or declarations provided by other authors.
Each author remains responsible for the accuracy of information concerning their own authorship, contributions, affiliations, competing interests, and other relevant declarations.
8. Unacceptable Authorship Practices
AMG Transcend Association does not accept authorship arrangements that misrepresent scholarly contribution, credit, or responsibility.
Unacceptable practices include:
- guest, gift, or honorary authorship, in which an individual is listed as an author despite not meeting the applicable authorship criteria;
- ghost authorship, in which an individual who made qualifying authorship contributions is intentionally omitted;
- purchased or transactional authorship, in which authorship is offered, obtained, exchanged, sold, or accepted in return for payment, services, favors, resources, publication assistance, or other benefits;
- adding individuals primarily because of seniority, institutional position, prestige, authority, or perceived ability to improve publication prospects;
- excluding qualifying contributors for commercial, institutional, personal, professional, or reputational reasons;
- deliberately misrepresenting individual contributions;
- including individuals as authors without their knowledge or consent;
- manipulating the author list for inappropriate academic, citation, institutional, commercial, or performance-related advantage.
Funding acquisition, access to facilities, administrative authority, general supervision, institutional leadership, or similar status alone must not be treated as sufficient justification for authorship.
9. Ghostwriting and Professional Assistance
Professional writing, language editing, statistical, technical, analytical, or other substantive assistance must be handled transparently.
Where such assistance does not meet authorship criteria, it should be acknowledged or otherwise disclosed where required by the applicable journal.
Where an individual’s contribution satisfies the criteria for authorship, that individual must not be omitted merely because the contribution was performed in a professional, commercial, institutional, or contractual capacity.
Authors must disclose relevant professional writing or other substantive assistance where necessary to provide an accurate and transparent account of how the manuscript was prepared.
Use of professional editing, writing-support, analytical, or technical services does not transfer responsibility for the manuscript’s accuracy, originality, integrity, or conclusions from the authors.
10. Artificial Intelligence and Authorship
Artificial-intelligence systems, generative tools, language models, or other automated systems cannot qualify as authors because they cannot assume responsibility or accountability for scholarly work.
Human authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, attribution, transparency, and reliability of submitted and published content, including content produced or modified with the assistance of artificial-intelligence or generative tools.
Use of such tools must be disclosed where required by the applicable journal’s AI and Generative Tools policy.
11. Changes to Authorship
Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors after submission must be treated as exceptional changes requiring appropriate justification.
Before such a change is approved, the journal may require:
- a written explanation of the reason for the proposed change;
- confirmation that the revised author list accurately reflects contributions and authorship eligibility;
- agreement from all affected authors, including individuals being added or removed;
- an updated Author Contributions statement;
- additional documentation where necessary.
Editorial processing may be suspended while a significant authorship issue is being resolved.
Authorship changes requested after acceptance require particular scrutiny because the accepted author record should normally already reflect the individuals responsible for the work.
Requests made after publication require additional scrutiny because changes affect the permanent scholarly record.
Where an authorship change is approved after publication, the journal must take appropriate action, which may include publication of a correction or other notice necessary to maintain an accurate and transparent authorship record.
A request for an authorship change must not be approved merely to accommodate institutional, professional, personal, strategic, commercial, or reputational preferences that are inconsistent with actual contributions and authorship eligibility.
12. Authorship Disputes
The journal may request information necessary to determine whether its published authorship requirements have been satisfied.
However, the journal is not normally the appropriate body to adjudicate substantive disputes between researchers concerning ownership of contributions, entitlement to authorship, or the appropriate ordering of authors where these matters cannot be resolved through application of the journal’s published criteria.
Where authors cannot reach agreement concerning the author list, author order, or attribution of contributions, the journal may suspend consideration of the manuscript and request resolution through the relevant institution or another appropriate body.
The journal may request confirmation of the outcome before editorial processing resumes.
Where an unresolved authorship dispute arises after publication, the journal may take appropriate editorial action to protect the accuracy and transparency of the scholarly record while institutional or other appropriate processes are undertaken.
13. Authorship Concerns and Misrepresentation
Credible concerns about inappropriate authorship may be assessed under the journal’s applicable publication-ethics procedures.
Assessment may include:
- requesting clarification from authors;
- reviewing contribution statements and submission records;
- requesting documentation relevant to the claimed or disputed contributions;
- seeking explanations or agreement from the individuals concerned;
- consulting an institution or other appropriate organization where necessary;
- considering whether the issue affects other aspects of the reliability, provenance, or transparency of the work.
The existence of an authorship disagreement does not automatically establish misconduct.
Where available evidence indicates deliberate misrepresentation, ghost authorship, purchased authorship, fabricated contributions, unauthorized inclusion of authors, or another serious authorship irregularity, the matter may also be addressed under applicable Publication Ethics and Research Integrity procedures and, where appropriate, referred to an institution or other competent body.
14. Post-Publication Authorship Issues
Authorship concerns identified after publication must be evaluated according to their nature, significance, and effect on attribution, accountability, transparency, and the reliability of the published work.
Where the scientific content remains reliable but the published author or contributor information is incomplete or inaccurate, correction of the authorship or contribution record may be appropriate.
Where an authorship issue is associated with broader concerns involving competing interests, undisclosed sponsorship, data integrity, research ethics, research misconduct, peer-review integrity, or the reliability of the article, additional assessment, institutional referral, or editorial action may be required.
Authorship disputes or deficiencies do not automatically require retraction.
Post-publication action must be proportionate to the effect of the problem on attribution, accountability, transparency, and the reliability of the scholarly record.
15. Responsibility for Accurate Authorship Information
Authors are responsible for providing accurate information concerning:
- names and affiliations;
- authorship eligibility;
- author order;
- individual contributions;
- corresponding-author designation;
- relevant acknowledgments;
- other declarations directly related to authorship and contributorship.
Authors must inform the journal promptly if they identify a material error concerning authorship, author order, affiliations, or contributions.
The publisher and journal are responsible for maintaining transparent authorship requirements and for taking appropriate editorial action when credible authorship concerns are identified.
16. Relationship with Other Policies
This policy should be read together with applicable AMG Transcend Association and journal policies concerning:
- Publication Ethics and Research Integrity
- Conflict of Interest and Competing Interests
- Editorial Independence and Governance
- Peer Review Principles
- Research Ethics
- Data Integrity and Reproducibility
- AI and Generative Tools
- Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern
- Complaints and Appeals
Journal-specific author guidelines may establish additional submission, contributorship, disclosure, and documentation requirements consistent with these principles.