Authorship and Contributorship

Criteria for Authorship

The Journal of Evidence-Based Medical Research applies the four ICMJE criteria. Authorship credit requires that an individual satisfies all four of the following:

  1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work; and
  2. Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; and
  3. Final approval of the version to be published; and
  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet all four criteria must not be listed as authors. They should instead be recognised in the Acknowledgements section, with their written permission and a description of their contribution.

Acquisition of funding, general supervision of a research group, or general administrative support does not, alone, justify authorship. Nor does the provision of materials, patients or reagents.

Contributor Statement

All submissions must include a contributor statement using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) framework, specifying each author's contribution across the fourteen CRediT roles. This statement is published with the accepted article.

Corresponding Author

The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal. They must ensure that all authorship requirements have been met, that all authors have approved the submitted and final versions, and that administrative requirements — including ethics approval documentation, competing interest disclosures and clinical trial registration details — have been properly completed. The corresponding author must supply a verifiable institutional email address.

ORCID

An ORCID iD is required for the corresponding author and strongly encouraged for all co-authors. ORCID iDs are published with the article and deposited with Crossref.

Changes to Authorship

Any addition, removal or reordering of authors after submission must be requested in writing by the corresponding author and must include:

  • the reason for the change; and
  • written confirmation from all authors, including any author being added or removed, that they agree.

Requests to change authorship after acceptance will delay publication. Requests after publication will result in a published correction notice. The journal does not process authorship changes on the basis of a request from a single author.

Authorship Disputes

The journal does not arbitrate authorship disputes. Where a dispute cannot be resolved among the authors, the manuscript is placed on hold or, if published, an expression of concern may be issued, and the matter is referred to the authors' institution for adjudication. The journal acts on the institution's finding.

Prohibited Practices

Guest authorship (naming an individual who did not contribute), gift authorship, and ghost authorship (omitting a person who did contribute, including professional medical writers) are forms of misconduct and are handled under the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

The journal does not permit the sale, purchase or transfer of authorship. Any submission linked to a paper mill will be rejected and reported to the relevant institutions.

Artificial intelligence tools cannot satisfy the authorship criteria and must not be listed as authors. See the Generative Artificial Intelligence Policy.