Authorship and Contributorship
When defining authorship for articles published in Indian Journal of Mental Health and Neurosciences, we take into account the COPE recommendations (Committee on Publication Ethics). Besides, we observe the CSE principles (Council of Science Editors). Roles of authors and contributors are determined by ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors).
According to the COPE recommendations, a manuscript author is a person who either owns an idea or develops and implements research through dissemination of intellectual and creative works. Authors perform the research and do not violate the copyright or other rights.
Authors must demonstrate only their own unique ideas and research results in the article, should not submit the paper to several journals simultaneously, must not borrow other authors’ ideas.
According to ICMJE recomendations, the authorship is based on the following criteria supported by the journal:
- Substantial contributions to work conception or design; acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data;
- Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
- Final approval of publication text;
- Agreement to be accountable for all work aspects in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Contributors who do not meet all four criteria should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged. Such persons can be listed in the Acknowledgement section of the article with description of their contribution to the research.
Co-authors should understand and share the entire research conception whose results are represented in the article rather than account for their sole contribution.
All persons listed as authors must meet all the four ICMJE criteria for authorship. For each author, his or her personal contribution to the writing of the article and conducting the research should be determined. Only real authors can claim authorship.
When submitting an article, all individuals who contributed to its preparation will be considered:
- Persons who have made a significant contribution to the research, but whose contribution is not authorship, should be clearly identified in the manuscript.
- Individuals who did not make a significant contribution to research results, but whose participation, advice or help were important in the implementation of the research.
- Persons or institutions who supported funding of the research results are mentioned at the article end with the funding source.
Each article with several authors has a corresponding author. The corresponding author communicates with editors and controls article processing. The corresponding author has the right to communicate with the Editorial Board on behalf of all authors (to disagree with reviewers reasonably, to declare the article withdrawal, etc).
Dispute Resolution
In cases of disputes or disagreements regarding authorship, the editorial board will follow a structured process to investigate and resolve the issue. The involved parties will be asked to provide evidence of their contributions to the research. Personal disputes between authors will not be involved or handled by the editorial board.
Changes to Authorship
Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after manuscript submission will only be considered in exceptional circumstances. Such requests must be supported by written explanations from all involved authors, providing detailed reasons for the changes. The editorial board will carefully evaluate these requests and may consult with journal advisors and review COPE guidelines if necessary.
Honorary and Ghost Authorship
Honorary authorship (gift authorship) and ghost authorship (uncredited contributions) are not accepted. Individuals who make only minor contributions to the research or article should be properly acknowledged in the acknowledgments section but will not be listed as authors
Conflict of Interest Statement
Authors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest that may influence the interpretation of their research in their submission. Conflicts of interest may include financial interests, affiliations, or personal relationships that could undermine the impartiality and credibility of the work. The journal encourages full transparency in these disclosures.
Compliance with Ethical Guidelines
Authors must adhere to the ethical guidelines and standards applicable in their research field. This includes obtaining appropriate permissions for the use of copyrighted materials, obtaining informed consent from human subjects, and ensuring ethical treatment of animals in research.
CONTRIBUTORSHIP
Specification of contributor roles
Contributorship is a process that accompanies obtaining scientific results by the authors. It is fully applicable to research articles but rarely to theoretical or observational ones. Contributorship may take various forms, such as intellectual (ideas, writing), practical (data analysis, conducting research), financial (funds). Individuals or institutions that participated in the research preparation must be mentioned in the article.
The Editorial Board follows the СОРЕ, WAME, and ICJME principles and recommendations regarding authorship and contributorship.
.When submitting an article, the corresponding author should define roles of each author. Authors are mutually responsible for their role distribution. The individual contribution of each author will be indicated in the Author Contributions manuscript section.
In the Acknowledgement article section, corresponding author should also specify individuals or institutions who have also contributed to the article but are not its authors. All acknowledged individuals should agree to be acknowledged. Besides, an editor may ask the corresponding author to provide the written consent from all acknowledged individuals for being mentioned in the Acknowledgement. This section should also include the use of artificial intelligence to assist in writing the article.
Author contributions may be marked in the following way (an example):
Conceptualisation: H. Sh., S. J.; data curation: H. Sh.; formal analysis: S. J.; funding acquisition: H. Sh., S. J.; investigation: H. Sh., S. J.; methodology: H. Sh.; project administration: H. Sh., S. J.; resources: H. Sh.; software: S. J.; supervision: H. Sh., S. J.; validation: H. Sh., S. J.; visualisation: H. Sh., S. J.; writing – original draft: H. Sh.; writing – review & editing: H. Sh.
- Sh. and S. J.are the initials of the authors.
According to CRediT, contributors’ roles are defined as follows:
- Conceptualisation: Ideas; formulation or evolution of research goals and aims.
- Data curation: Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub and maintain research data (including software code for interpreting the data itself).
- Formal analysis: Application of statistical, mathematical, computational or other formal techniques to analyse or synthesise study data.
- Funding acquisition: Acquisition of financial project support.
- Investigation: Conducting research, performing experiments, collecting data.
- Methodology: Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
- Project administration: Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and implementing.
- Resources: Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, laboratory samples, computing resources, other analysis tools.
- Software: Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
- Supervision: Leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and implementing.
- Validation: Verification of the overall research.
- Visualisation: Preparation, creation and presentation of the published work.
- Writing – original draft: Preparation, creation and presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft.
- Writing – review & editing: Preparation, creation and presentation of the published work by those from the original research group (critical review, commentary or revision for pre- or post-publication stages).
Technologies using artificial intelligence (AI)
According to our authorship criteria, as well as COPE and ICMJE’s positions on authorship, only human beings can be listed as authors, as currently, only human beings can be accountable for all work aspects.
When submitting an article to the journal, authors should indicate whether they have used artificial intelligence (AI) technologies (e.g., large language models [LLMs], chatbots, or image-generating programs) in writing the manuscript. Authors who use such technologies should describe, the submitted paper, how they used them. For example, if AI was used to assist in writing the paper, this should be indicated in the Acknowledgments section. If AI was used for data collection, analysis, or figure generation, the authors should describe this in the Methodology and Research Methods section.