Research Authorship and Acknowledgment Protocol

The HIPRC follows the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for defining authorship of manuscripts and other scholarly products. The ICMJE’s recommended criteria for authorship are featured below.

HIPRC faculty, staff, trainees, and affiliates are expected to include the HIPRC among their author affiliations.

Please contact HIPRC (hiprc@uw.edu) if you have any questions about this protocol.

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The ICMJE’s recommended criteria for authorship are:

  • 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.

Initial project discussions should establish a list of anticipated co-authors. Changes to the list, including additions of new co-authors and order of authorship, should be agreed upon by all co-authors.

For projects that, after discussion with the involved Research Core members, involve assistance that does not meet the ICMJE criteria for authorship, please acknowledge HIPRC’s role on all scholarly products, including publications, conference presentations, and posters.  Agreement on authorship versus acknowledgement must be agreed upon by all collaborators.

Example acknowledgment:

“The authors are grateful for the support and technical assistance of the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center at the University of Washington, including [core member’s name] for their help with data analysis and [core member’s name] for their comments on an early draft of the manuscript.”

Please acknowledge HIPRC’s role on any of your publications, conference presentations, or posters that benefit from the INSIGHT Summer Research Program, including work with a trainee whose involvement does not meet criteria for authorship.

Example acknowledgment:

“The authors would like to thank [trainee name] and the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center’s INSIGHT Summer Research Program for their contributions to the study. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health 5R25HD094336-02 through the INSIGHT Summer Research Program.”