Postgraduate Research Student Authorship Statement
Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences
Purpose
Disseminating the results of your research through activities such as authoring an
article, book chapter, conference paper or other publication is exciting and
rewarding. Such activities can provide important opportunities for the student to
receive an independent critique of their work and contribute to refining and improving
the research. These peer-review processes are a central part of the quality
assurance procedures for researchers and engaging in these processes can be an
important part of a postgraduate student’s education. In addition, the publication
and/or presentation of the research can contribute positively to the reputation of the
student, their supervisor/s and of the University.
This statement has been developed to assist and guide postgraduate research
students and their supervisors in discussions about authorship of manuscripts,
papers and presentations resulting from the student's thesis/dissertation work. This
policy does not apply to intellectual property as issues relating to intellectual property
require a separate agreement. This agreement is intended to be negotiable and may
be amended as mutually agreed to by the student and supervisors.
Please note that:
1. This is a negotiable agreement and the contents should be discussed and
agreed on by all parties before signing.
2. Before signing, the student is free to seek independent advice regarding the
obligations and implications of signing this agreement (for example, from the
AUSM Postgraduate Representative or Associate Dean Postgraduate
Research)
3. The Postgraduate Research Student Authorship Statement will form part of
the student’s supervision agreement, but may be re-negotiated from time to
time where appropriate, with the agreement of all parties.
4. The student is free to opt out when there is a change in circumstances by
providing a written statement.
Policy and Procedure
Students intending to submit a PGR1 or PGR9 to the FHES Postgraduate and
Research Committee must also submit with these the signed Postgraduate
Research Student Authorship Statement. This statement may include the following:
Prepared by FHES Postgraduate & Research Committee, May 2016
V4.0
Update 8Aug16
Page 1
1.
I agree that any work arising from my enrollment at AUT that I submit for
publication will include as co-author(s) of that work those who have made a
significant contribution to the work, as per the ICMJE criteria set out below.
Typically, the primary supervisor will be a co-author, unless there are clear
reasons to the contrary. It is understood that the student will be the lead author.
In some cases, the primary supervisor may be the corresponding author.
ICMJE CRITERIA
The ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) recommends
that authorship be based on the following four criteria:




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.
2.
In order to ensure the continuity of the university's research activities, including
my participation therein, I understand that I own the copyright in my thesis as
well as Intellectual Property (IP) which I have created by myself using my own
resources and any University resources which are attributable to my course
fees, unless agreed otherwise.
3.
I acknowledge that if I do not provide a suitable first draft of a manuscript to my
primary supervisor for publication normally within 12 months of submitting the
thesis, my primary supervisor may proceed with publication after consulting
with me wherever possible, and will acknowledge my contribution to the work
as an author.
Signed: ______________________________________ (Student)
Signed: _______________________________________ (Primary supervisor)
Date:
_______________________________________
Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences
Postgraduate Research Student Authorship Statement
Amended by: Postgraduate Research Committee
Effective from: March 2016
Prepared by FHES Postgraduate & Research Committee, May 2016
Revision Date: 8 August 2016
Next Revision Date: May 2017
V4.0
Update 8Aug16
Page 2
FACULTY OF HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH STUDENT AUTHORSHIP GUIDELINES
1. Purpose
2. Background
3. Guidelines
4. Procedure
Appendices
1. Checklist for authorship
2. Authorship agreement form
1. Purpose
To ensure that all postgraduate research students and their supervisors in the Faculty of
Health and Environmental Sciences use consistent guidelines when making decisions on who
should be named as (co-)authors on a publication and in which order.
2. Background
There can be perceived and actual power imbalances between staff and postgraduate students,
with regard to decisions as to who are co-authors when it comes to outputs from a
postgraduate student’s research activities for their thesis, dissertation or exegesis and creative
work. To reduce the risk of conflict and to ensure ethical behaviour for collaborative
publishing and presenting, these guidelines have been developed. It is essential that
publication and presenting authorship contributions are discussed before studies are
commenced and that contributions to the studies and eventual publications and presentations
are discussed during the research process. These guidelines aim to help this discussion
between the postgraduate research student and their supervisors as collaborators in the
research process.
Elsevier defines authorship as follows:
“Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the
conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have
made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who
have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be
acknowledged or listed as contributors.” [http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/ethics]
ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) recommends that authorship be
based on the following four criteria:
 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
Prepared by FHES Postgraduate & Research Committee, May 2016
V4.0
Update 8Aug16
Page 3

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.
“All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for
authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as
authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged.
The individuals who conduct the work are responsible for identifying who
meets these criteria and ideally should do so when planning the work,
making modifications as appropriate as the work progresses. It is the
collective responsibility of the authors, not the journal to which the work
is submitted, to determine that all people named as authors meet all four
criteria; it is not the role of journal editors to determine who qualifies or
does not qualify for authorship or to arbitrate authorship conflicts. If
agreement cannot be reached about who qualifies for authorship, the
institution(s) where the work was performed, not the journal editor, should
be asked to investigate.”
[http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-andresponsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html]
An article in the American Psychologist, 48(11), 1993, 1141-1147 explored the
process of determining authorship credit and authorship order on collaborative
publications with students. It was proposed that authorship credit and order
decisions should be based on the relative scholarly abilities and professional
contributions of the collaborators. Furthermore, it was recommended that both
faculty and students participate in the authorship decision-making process
early in the collaborative endeavour. Reflections on determining authorship
credit and authorship order on faculty student collaborations. Fine, Mark A.,
Kurdek, Lawrence A. American Psychologist, 48(11), Nov 1993, 1141-1147.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.48.11.1141
3. Guidelines for co-authorship
With effect from January 2016, the Faculty will adopt the four criteria set by ICMJE to
determine whether contributors to a publication should be named as co-authors or
acknowledged as contributors to the publication, i.e. each co-author:
 Has made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the
acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
 Has drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content; AND
 Has given final approval of the version to be published; AND
 Has agreed 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.
Prepared by FHES Postgraduate & Research Committee, May 2016
V4.0
Update 8Aug16
Page 4
When a large multi-author group has conducted the work, the group will decide who will be
an author before the work is started and confirm who is an author before submitting the
manuscript for publication. All members of the group named as authors should meet all four
criteria for authorship, including approval of the final manuscript, and they should be able to
take public responsibility for the work and should have full confidence in the accuracy and
integrity of the work of other group authors.
When staff are publishing and/or presenting with students:
 A publication protocol will be defined, which will be included in the student’s
supervision agreement.
 Publication of research may be in conjunction with the supervisor(s), who would
typically be second or third authors on published or presented work. It is anticipated
that the student is the lead author. Contributing authors will be included in the list of
authors of a given piece of work.
 Students submitting PGR1s or PGR9s must provide a signed Student Authorship
statement prior to those documents being submitted to the Faculty’s Postgraduate
Research Committee.
 An appropriate Intellectual Property agreement, if needed will be entered into
between the student, the research team and AUT University.
4. Procedure
To determine who should be named as authors on a publication, and in which order, the
Postgrad student researchers and supervisors/collaborators will complete the checklist set out
in Appendix 1, in consultation with all researchers working on the project. All co-authors
must agree, and sign the Authorship agreement form (see Appendix 2). The signed
Authorship agreement form is to be held on file by the corresponding author.
Prepared by FHES Postgraduate & Research Committee, May 2016
V4.0
Update 8Aug16
Page 5
Appendix A – CHECKLIST FOR AUTHORSHIP (PUBLICATIONS, PRESENTATIONS, REPORTS,
GRANTS)
Project/Output Name:
Aspect of the work
Description of activity
CONCEPTION*
DESIGN*
Developing the idea for the research
Designing the study and planning the
methods to generate results
Making sense of and presenting the
results
Novel contributions not listed above
Contribution to data collection and data
management
ANALYSIS &/or
INTERPRETATION*
OTHER
DATA COLLECTION
and/or PROCESSING


List all authors with a significant role, in
descending order of contribution
Authorship will reflect scholarly input. Significant contribution to three or more is required (most
guidelines suggest each of the criteria with an asterisk are key considerations) to reflect contribution and
therefore named author status.
Acquisition of any one of the following alone (collection of data, general supervision of staff/a centre/ an
institute, or acquiring funding, e.g. in the case of attracting sponsorship for a position not a project) does
not constitute authorship.
Named authorship contribution to the output**
WRITING
Writing the manuscript (authorship order
should reflect contribution as noted above).
CRITICAL
Editing the manuscript with intellectual
REVIEW
contribution (not simple proof reading).
** As part of planning the output, all authors should develop a plan for writing or presenting the paper, who is
involved at each stage and what their intended contribution is. While the first author has responsibility for
leading the planning and ensuring all parties agree, there are a number of different approaches to constructing
a research output. The team should agree the structure and core argument of the output prior to drafting the
paper or presentation. Different outputs will involve different approaches to preparation, writing and
presenting, for example, the first author creates the initial draft, or different authors may draft different
sections. This should be agreed at the time of developing a plan for creating the paper or presentation.






Decisions regarding selection of the journal, conference or other means of disseminating the research (eg.
book chapter), as well as authorship order, and corresponding authors should be discussed not assumed.
All those named as authors should qualify for authorship and all those who qualify should be named.
Each author should have participated sufficiently to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of
content.
All named authors should approve the final version to be submitted/published/presented.
All potential outputs and authorship decisions associated with a study should be discussed with the
student as the principle investigator for the project as early as possible to resolve any issues.
In the case of work conducted by a student as part of their postgraduate research, it is anticipated that
student will be the first author and that supervisors who have contributed to the key criteria above be
Prepared by FHES Postgraduate & Research Committee, May 2016
V4.0
Update 8Aug16
Page 6




named co-authors. If for any reason this is not the case, this should be discussed as early as possible to
resolve any issues.
In studies with a large number of investigators, a core group may undertake authorship of a component of
the work ‘on behalf of x study team’. That core group should be decided upon based on the criteria noted
above, with all other collaborators in the study team named in the most appropriate place for the source
concerned.1
Some disciplines consider the last author to signify a ‘senior’ or ‘guiding’ author’s position.
Acknowledgement is appropriate for contributions including advice or comment. You should seek
permission from everyone you intend to acknowledge. If significant and/or extensive, co-authorship may
be warranted but should not be assumed. Discuss with the core writing team and the person/s concerned.
This is a guide and there will always be nuanced decisions to be made - early discussion is essential.
Adapted from http://www.icmje.org/ethical_1author.html Retrieved 12th December 2013.
1 The NLM indexes group name and names of individuals identified as being directly responsible for the manuscript; it also
lists the names of collaborators if they are listed in Acknowledgments.
Prepared by FHES Postgraduate & Research Committee, May 2016
V4.0
Update 8Aug16
Page 7
Appendix B – AUTHORSHIP AGREEMENT FORM
Title of research project/programme
Type of publication(s) anticipated
(e.g. book, journal article, conference presentation)
Proposed order of authors for first publication
Anticipated focus of publication
Authors
1.
2.
3.
4.
(add additional lines for more than 4 authors)
Proposed order of authors for second publication (if authorship will vary from first
publication)
(repeat this section or add pages if third and subsequent publications are anticipated and authorship will vary)
Anticipated focus of publication
Authors
1.
2.
3.
4.
(add additional lines for more than 4 authors)
I agree to the listed individuals as being appropriate authors and the order of authorship listed
above.
Author 1
Signed:
Date:
Name:
Author 2
Signed:
Date:
Name:
Author 3
Signed:
Date:
Name:
Author 4
Signed:
Date:
Name:
Prepared by FHES Postgraduate & Research Committee, May 2016
V4.0
Update 8Aug16
Page 8