Authorship & Contributorship

Everyone listed as an author should meet the Culture, Education, and Future (CEF) criteria for authorship. Everyone who meets the CEF criteria for authorship must be listed as an author. CEF expects that all authors will take public responsibility for the content of the paper submitted to the CEF.

The contributions of all authors must be described in the "Declarations" section on paper. All authors should be contacted by email at the submission to ensure that they are aware of and approve the submission of the manuscript, its content, and its authorship. 

Order of authors, credit and non-citation:

— The academic status or other indicators of power should not determine first authorship. All contributing authors should be credited in the order of the significance of their contribution in the authoring process;

— All those who have made a substantive contribution to the generation of an intellectual product are entitled to be listed as authors;

— There should be no ‘ghost’ authoring of publications and it is improper to list people who have not directly contributed to the research or written outputs of the research.

Status of authors and location of authors:

— The status and institutional location of all authors should be made visible in all research materials and outputs.

Transparency, conflict of interest, funder visibility:

— There is a fundamental obligation on authors to acknowledge and attribute all external sources, financial or in kind, such as organizations or sponsors who have contributed to the research programme directly or indirectly;

— Authors should disclose the publication history of articles or books they present for publication. If a present article or book is substantially similar in content and form to one previously published, that fact should be noted and the place of prior publication cited.

— When CEF encounters disagreements among authors, CEF follows guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)—see here and here.