Reducing tensions and expediting manuscript submission via an authorship agreement for early-career researchers: A pilot study

ABSTRACT

Authorship can be a source of tension on research teams, in academic/industry collaborations, and between mentors/mentees. Authorship misconduct is prevalent among biomedical researchers, and disputes about authorship can generate tensions that have the potential to disrupt professional relationships and damage careers. Early-career researchers may experience particular challenges navigating authorship both because of inexperience and power differentials; in effect, they lack the language and confidence to have these conversations and may feel unwilling to challenge the status quo. The authors implemented an Authorship Agreement for use when collaborating on a manuscript and hypothesized that using this agreement would reduce authorship tensions and speed time to manuscript submission by helping early-career investigators manage authorship conversations more effectively. The authors surveyed trainees (n = 65) on the prevalence of authorship-related tensions and compared the results from the first survey in 2017 to the final survey in 2020. The decrease in tensions around meeting deadlines was significant (z = 2.59, p = 0.010). The authors believe the effect of an Authorship Agreement on authorship-related tensions has not previously been investigated. This work extends what is known about the prevalence of commonly cited authorship tensions, and provides evidence of the effectiveness of steps that can be taken to alleviate them.

KEYWORDS:

• Authorship
• Misconduct in research
• Organizational and institutional ethics
• Publication
• Publication ethics
• Research ethics in university contexts
• Research integrity
• Responsible Conduct Of Research
• Translational Research
• Pilot Study

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Megan Miller, M.Ed., for her contributions to Table 1. The authors would also like to thank Reviewer 3 for their help in describing how tensions between researchers might be expressed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Call-out Box 1: Six Criteria for the Agreement

Table

Call-out Box 2: Summary of Recommendations for Leaders

Table

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by NCATS/NIH Grant National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences UL1 National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences UL1 TR001857–04.