Authorship Criteria

1. Authorship (ALL criteria must be met)

A person qualifies as an author only if they meet all of the following:

  1. Substantial contributions to at least one of: the conception or design of the work; acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or creation of new software used in the work.

  2. Drafting the manuscript or critical revision of important intellectual content.

  3. Final approval of the version to be submitted (and of any substantially revised version involving their contribution).

  4. Accountability: agreement to be personally accountable for their own contributions and to help ensure that any questions about accuracy or integrity—even for parts they were not personally involved in—are investigated, resolved, and documented.

At least one author should act as guarantor, affirming that the work as a whole is accurate, transparent, and reproducible to the extent possible.

2. Contributorship (CRediT taxonomy)

  • JPI requires a CRediT roles statement for each author (e.g., Conceptualization; Methodology; Software; Validation; Formal analysis; Investigation; Resources; Data curation; Writing—original draft; Writing—review & editing; Visualization; Supervision; Project administration; Funding acquisition).

  • Example (to be placed under “Author Contributions”):
    A.B.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing—original draft; C.D.: Data curation, Formal analysis, Visualization; E.F.: Supervision, Funding acquisition, Writing—review & editing.

3. Who does not qualify as author

The following alone do not justify authorship (acknowledge instead): general supervision, acquisition of funding, administrative support, data collection only, editing/formatting, language polishing/translation, or advice without intellectual input.

4. Corresponding author responsibilities

The corresponding author ensures that:

  • all contributors who meet authorship criteria are listed and all authors approve the submission;

  • CRediT, funding, data availability, ethics/consent, competing interests, and (if applicable) AI-use disclosure are complete;

  • after acceptance, proofs are coordinated and post-publication issues are handled.

5. Equal contribution & group authorship

  • Equal contributions may be indicated with a footnote (e.g., “A.B. and C.D. contributed equally”).

  • Group/consortium authorship is permitted; list the group name as author and provide a roster (with CRediT roles) in a note or supplement.

6. Generative AI & professional assistance

  • AI tools are not authors. Limited use for language editing/formatting is allowed only with disclosure and human verification (see JPI’s “Use of Generative AI” policy).

  • Professional writers/editors or translators must be acknowledged with funding/source; undisclosed ghostwriting is prohibited.

7. Changes to authorship

  • Before acceptance: any addition, removal, or re-ordering requires a written request from the corresponding author with signed consent from all authors (including the added/removed author) and a brief justification.

  • After acceptance/publication: approved changes will be reflected via a correction notice; requests are evaluated case-by-case.

8. Name, affiliation, and identifier

  • Authors should provide the affiliation where the work was primarily conducted (additional affiliations may be listed).

  • ORCID iD is required for all authors.