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Recently, I learned about honorary authorships in papers and publications - e.g. the head of an institute or person who secured the financial grants.

If you are in an inferior position, like a PhD student or not being the head of an institute, and you do not believe in giving credit via authorship to anyone who was not significantly involved in the studies directly; (by the way, according to some scientific boards, not even securing grants or offering the lab counts as such), can you successfully deny adding an honorary authorship for your supervisor or other superior without having to bear negative consequences for your work and later supervision?

After all, honorary authorship has a bad influence on life balance of scientists if seen on a large scale.

David Ketcheson
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Lucas
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    "or person who secured the financial grants": Given the difficulty of securing financial grants, I wouldn't underestimate this role. – Massimo Ortolano Apr 23 '16 at 13:58
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    Strongly related question: What should PhD students do when they are told to add authors who did not contribute to the paper (e.g., head of school, international funders)? – Nobody Apr 23 '16 at 14:03
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    @Massimo Ortolano: Of course not, but according to the honorary authorship article on Wiki, many universities do not see securing grants as having contributed significantly to design, execution, analysis, and paper writing of some research...what again is considered the requirement to count as author in good science, as it seems to be stated in several scientific board guidelines. – Lucas Apr 23 '16 at 14:33
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    What are "respective moral standards" and what have they got to do with the question? It's hard to understand, because you are asking about cheating a supervisor out of authorship. – 410 gone Apr 23 '16 at 15:26
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    Most of the time, just add the authors. This was advice I had from a good mentor. Sure, they may not have done the requisite work, but if they think they and there's some policy that they should be added, make them happy. In the end, it's a practical choice of making friends/enemies with the higher ups. – Chris Rackauckas Apr 23 '16 at 15:51
  • But this simply making happy policy has huge consequences in the large picture and accumulated over a lot of universities: stress increases and life balance goes down the river...which would not have to be at all. It's simply because some scientists want to be like Einstein or celebrated like Hollywood stars as having done huge discoveries for mankind. Of course, in the end, we're all humans, but we could at least strive for better situations, which do not come it thinking is not altered and no action occur. – Lucas Apr 23 '16 at 19:30
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    It depends on how much of an unethical jerk the person who wants honorary co-authorship is. Obviously. – JeffE Apr 23 '16 at 20:38
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    This sort of scenario is an example of the potential for self-immolation that serves no purpose... since unless everyone else in your situation did he same. "Standing on principle" in the face of over-whelming force is dangerous, etc., ... – paul garrett Apr 23 '16 at 20:54
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    @paulgarrett: "Standing on principle" is incredibly valuable sometimes - case in point, the VT research group that helped uncover the Flint, MI crisis. That said - I agree, this is a matter of picking your battles. In the grand scheme of things, adding a supervisor's name to a paper - assuming they provided something, even if it's funding (which presumably meant they also had a role in the project's conception) - is a battle not worth waging. There are wars to be fought elsewhere of far more importance. – tonysdg Apr 23 '16 at 20:57
  • Standing on principle: good point that it might be bad in an inferior position and when facing reality. But why is it so hard for superior scientists to be honest and admit that the significant work was all done by their humpalumpas? I couldn't live with lying to have made a scientific breakthrough or merely some usual scientific work when I was not as involved in the process as others were. I'd always know that it's the work of others and not mine. – Lucas Apr 23 '16 at 23:23
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    I once had an entertaining afternoon at a panel discussion on journal name integrity pointing out that the folks at the panel were all openly talking about violating one another's principles. Ultimately, it's still a field and area of handshakes and agreements, and what one person considers reasonable, another will not. And sometimes favors will win out – Broklynite Apr 24 '16 at 08:59
  • Related questions: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51185/my-advisor-escalated-things-after-not-getting-a-coauthorship-he-did-not-deserve http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20076/what-should-i-do-if-my-advisor-insists-on-being-first-author-in-violation-of-my http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26670/authorship-issues-in-numerical-mathematics – David Ketcheson Apr 24 '16 at 09:04
  • More closely related questions: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/644/when-should-a-supervisor-be-an-author/ http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/12030/81 – David Ketcheson Apr 24 '16 at 09:06

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I'm surprised this is still an issue - though I guess not as surprised as I'd hoped to be. It's rather sad that there are still people out there who demand to be credited for work they haven't done.

Some journals have clear guidance for what merits authorship. For example, pretty much all medical journals sign up to guidance from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html#two) which requires

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work AND

    • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content AND

    • Final approval of the version to be published AND

    • 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.

(So in the example above, getting the grant money would probably count as contributions to conception or design, so warrant authorship as long as the putative author then didn't abandon the project but could meet the other three criteria; but providing space for the work e.g. in a lab or recruiting participants, on it's own wouldn't be enough)

Most journals then require a statement of what the authors did to meet these requirements which is published with the article - so in order for someone who doesn't warrant authorship to claim it they, and their 'co-authors' have to lie in print.

So in the unlikely event my head of department, or anyone else, insisted on being added as an author when I thought they didn't warrant it, I'd ask them to justify the request using the ICMJE criteria.

Of course - thats the easy bit.

If you're working in an area which doesn't work like this, you have to think about keeping on board with the community. If someone senior really thinks they deserve authorship on your paper, and you don't, you have to decide whether you're going to keep them happy.

I'd suggest you may need to find someone else to persuade them they should't be named. That may be someone superior to them in your institution, or you may need to discuss with the editor of the journal you're submitting to - who can then ask for justification of contributions should they see fit.

Fundamentally though it seems that attitudes like this may suggest something rotten in the culture of either a department, or possibly a discipline. And culture change like this will take years.

rhialto
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  • And if you're a last-year PhD student trying to get the final few publications out, paying the journal fees depends on an advisor who's primary strength was always networking and not so much research content, who now finds you "sufficiently independent" to do only basic grammar checks in manuscript revisions, and ignores your e-mail about "how should I phrase your contribution please, the journal requires it?" -- that's exactly what you do. Or, at least, what I did; kept it as vague as possible, but ultimately invented his contributions in print beyond 'space/money'. Feels bad, would do again. – penelope Feb 06 '20 at 12:36