- Purpose and Scope
AMG Transcend Association requires authorship to reflect genuine intellectual contribution and responsibility for scholarly work.
This policy establishes publisher-level principles concerning authorship eligibility, contributorship, corresponding-author responsibilities, inappropriate authorship practices, changes in authorship, and accountability across the journals published by AMG Transcend Association.
Individual journals may establish additional procedural requirements appropriate to their scope, article types, and editorial workflows.
- Criteria for Authorship
Authorship must be based on meaningful intellectual contribution to the work and acceptance of responsibility for the published content.
To qualify as an author, an individual must meet all of the following conditions:
- Substantial contribution to the work, such as contribution to the conception or design of the study, acquisition 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 or published; and
- Accountability, by agreeing to take responsibility for their contribution and to cooperate in addressing questions concerning the accuracy, integrity, ethics, or reliability of the work.
All individuals listed as authors must meet the applicable authorship criteria, and individuals who meet the criteria should not be omitted from the author list.
Authorship must not be assigned solely on the basis of status, seniority, institutional position, funding, supervision, or other considerations unrelated to qualifying intellectual contribution.
- Author Accountability
Authorship represents both scholarly credit and responsibility.
Each author must be able to take responsibility for their own contributions and should understand the overall nature and conclusions of the work sufficiently to have confidence in its integrity.
Authors must cooperate in addressing legitimate questions concerning the accuracy, ethics, integrity, or reliability of the publication, 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, or other relevant information.
Differences in individual contributions do not remove the shared obligation of authors to cooperate in resolving significant questions affecting the integrity of the published work.
- 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; or
- 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 with any required consent.
Acknowledgment does not confer authorship or responsibility for the work as an author.
- 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 contributions.
Contributor-role terminology supports transparency but does not independently determine whether an individual qualifies for authorship. A person may perform a recognized contributor role without necessarily satisfying all authorship criteria.
Contribution statements must not be used to conceal inappropriate authorship arrangements or to assign roles that were not actually performed.
- Order of Authors
The order in which authors are listed must be determined by the author group according to the contributions, conventions, or 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 or shared responsibility is declared, such statements must accurately represent the contributions concerned and may be published where permitted by the relevant journal.
- 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 the submission;
- confirming that all authors have reviewed and approved the submitted or final manuscript as required;
- coordinating agreement concerning the author list and order;
- communicating editorial requests and relevant correspondence to co-authors;
- coordinating responses to reviewer and editor comments;
- ensuring that required declarations, including authorship, contributions, funding, competing interests, ethical approvals, and other relevant statements, are provided to the journal;
- notifying the journal of relevant changes or significant problems affecting the manuscript; and
- 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 by other authors.
Each author remains responsible for the accuracy of information concerning their own authorship, contribution, and relevant declarations.
- Unacceptable Authorship Practices
AMG Transcend Association does not accept authorship arrangements that misrepresent scholarly contribution or responsibility.
Unacceptable practices include:
- guest, gift, or honorary authorship, in which an individual is listed as an author despite not meeting 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, or accepted in return for payment, services, favors, resources, publication assistance, or other benefits;
- adding individuals primarily because of seniority, institutional position, prestige, or perceived ability to improve publication prospects;
- excluding qualifying contributors for commercial, institutional, personal, or reputational reasons;
- deliberately misrepresenting individual contributions;
- including individuals as authors without their knowledge or consent; and
- manipulating the author list for inappropriate academic, citation, institutional, or performance-related advantage.
Funding acquisition, access to facilities, administrative authority, or general supervision alone must not be treated as sufficient justification for authorship.
- Ghostwriting and Professional Assistance
Professional writing, editing, statistical, technical, or analytical assistance must be handled transparently.
Where such assistance does not meet authorship criteria, it should be acknowledged or disclosed where required by the applicable journal.
Where an individual’s contribution meets the criteria for authorship, that individual must not be omitted merely because the work 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 account of how the manuscript was produced.
- 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;
- agreement from all affected authors, including individuals being added or removed;
- an updated Author Contributions statement; and
- additional documentation where necessary.
Editorial processing may be suspended while a significant authorship issue is being resolved.
Requests made after acceptance or publication require additional scrutiny because changes affect the permanent scholarly record.
Where an authorship change is approved after publication, the journal may publish an appropriate correction or other notice to maintain an accurate and transparent record.
A request for an authorship change must not be approved merely to accommodate institutional, professional, personal, or strategic preferences that are inconsistent with actual contributions.
- Authorship Disputes
The journal may request information necessary to determine whether its published authorship requirements have been satisfied, but it is not normally the appropriate body to adjudicate substantive disputes between researchers concerning ownership of contributions or entitlement to authorship.
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 action to protect the transparency of the scholarly record while institutional or other appropriate processes are undertaken.
- Authorship Concerns and Misrepresentation
Credible concerns about inappropriate authorship may be assessed under the journal’s publication-ethics procedures.
Assessment may include:
- requesting clarification from authors;
- reviewing contribution statements and submission records;
- requesting documentation relevant to the disputed contributions;
- seeking agreement or explanations from the individuals concerned;
- consulting an institution or other appropriate organization where necessary; and
- considering whether the issue affects other aspects of the reliability or transparency of the work.
The existence of an authorship disagreement does not automatically establish misconduct.
Where evidence indicates deliberate misrepresentation, ghost authorship, purchased authorship, fabricated contributions, or another serious authorship irregularity, the matter may also be addressed under applicable Publication Ethics and Research Integrity procedures.
- Post-Publication Authorship Issues
Authorship concerns identified after publication must be evaluated according to their nature and significance.
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 misconduct, or the reliability of the article, additional investigation and 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.
- 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; and
- other declarations relevant to authorship and contributorship.
Authors must inform the journal promptly if they identify a material error concerning authorship or contributions.
The publisher and journal are responsible for maintaining transparent authorship requirements and for taking reasonable action when credible authorship concerns are identified.
- 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; and
- Complaints and Appeals.
Journal-specific author guidelines may establish additional submission and documentation requirements consistent with these principles.