CONTENTS

1. Scope and Purpose
2. Definitions
3. Criteria for Authorship
4. Credit Contributor Roles Taxonomy
5. Author Contributions Statement
6. Corresponding Author: Role and Responsibilities
7. Pre-Submission Authorship Agreement
8. Prohibited Authorship Practices
9. Acknowledgments
10. Authorship Changes During The Review Process
11. Authorship Changes After Acceptance
12. Authorship Changes After Publication
13. Authorship Disputes
14. Equal Contribution
15. Group and Consortium Authorship
16. Industry Authorship
17. Orcid, Ror and Author Identification
18. Author Name Change Policy
19. Artificial Intelligence and Authorship
20. Medical Writers and Editorial Assistance
21. Equity, Diversity and Inclusion In Authorship
22. Guarantorship and Accountability
23. Sanctions and Corrective Measures
24. Related Policies
25. Reference Standards 

 

      1. SCOPE AND PURPOSE

The Authorship Policy of European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) establishes the criteria, procedures, and standards that govern the attribution, documentation, and modification of authorship for all manuscripts submitted to and published in the Journal. The policy applies without exception to all article types accepted by the Journal.

The policy is binding for all parties involved in the submission and publication process: corresponding authors, co-authors, Guest Editors and, where applicable, members of the Editorial Board submitting manuscripts to the Journal. Compliance with this policy is a condition of submission.

The Authorship Policy is aligned with the criteria and recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy (NISO RP-47-2022), and the DOAJ principles of transparency. It is published openly on the Journal website and reviewed at intervals of no more than 3 years or whenever a material revision of the applicable international standards requires an update.

2. DEFINITIONS

For this policy, the following definitions apply:

Author: Any individual who meets all 4 ICMJE criteria for authorship as set out in Section 4 of this policy and is listed as such in the submitted manuscript.

Contributor: Any individual who has made a meaningful contribution to the research or its preparation but who does not meet all 4 ICMJE authorship criteria and is therefore acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section rather than listed as an author.

Corresponding Author: The author designated to manage all communications with the Journal before, during, and after the review process, and to take primary responsibility for the completeness and accuracy of the information submitted on behalf of all co-authors.

CRediT Taxonomy: The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (NISO RP-47-2022), a standardized classification of 14 roles describing the specific contributions of individual authors and contributors to a published work.

Ghost Author: An individual who has made a substantial intellectual contribution meeting all 4 ICMJE authorship criteria but who is not listed as an author in the manuscript.

Gift Author / Honorary Author: An individual listed as an author who has not made any substantive contribution meeting the ICMJE criteria, added solely based on seniority, institutional prestige, personal relationships, or financial considerations.

Guest Author: An individual listed as an author for strategic purposes - such as improving chances of acceptance - without having made the required intellectual contributions.

Coerced Authorship: The inclusion or exclusion of an individual from the author list without their knowledge or against their expressed will, including cases arising from institutional hierarchy, professional pressure, or other forms of coercion that override an individual's free consent.

Guarantor: The author (or authors) who accepts overall responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from conception to published article.

Equal Contribution: A declaration that 2 or more authors have contributed to the work in equal measure with respect to the stated roles.

Group Authorship: A publication model in which a named collaborative group is listed as author, with individual members identified in an appendix or supplementary list.

Medical Writer: A professional who provides substantive writing or editing assistance to authors in the preparation of a manuscript, whether or not such assistance meets the threshold for authorship.

3. CRITERIA FOR AUTHORSHIP

The European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) adopts the 4-criterion definition of authorship established by the ICMJE. To qualify for authorship, each individual must have:

• made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• participated in drafting the work or in revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• approved the final version of the manuscript submitted to the Journal; AND
• 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.

All 4 criteria must be met simultaneously. The satisfaction of one or more criteria in isolation is not sufficient for authorship. In particular, neither the acquisition of funding, nor the provision of administrative support, nor general supervision of the research group, nor sole provision of biological materials or data collection, constitutes grounds for authorship in isolation. Individuals who have made a contribution but do not meet all 4 criteria must be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section (Section 10).

All individuals who meet all 4 criteria must be listed as authors. The deliberate exclusion of a qualifying contributor from the author list constitutes ghost authorship (Section 9) and is treated accordingly by the Journal.

The Journal draws attention to the 2025 ICMJE guidance that editors should be aware of the practice of excluding local researchers from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from authorship when data are collected in LMICs. The Journal does not condone such exclusion and regards it as a potential form of authorship misconduct subject to investigation pursuant to Section 24.

4. CREDIT CONTRIBUTOR ROLES TAXONOMY

The European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) requires all submitted manuscripts to include a CRediT author contributions statement in which each author is assigned one or more of the 14 standardized roles defined by the NISO Contributor Roles Taxonomy (RP-47-2022). The CRediT statement must be included in the manuscript at the point of submission and will be published as part of the final article record.

CRediT Role	Description
Conceptualization	Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
Data Curation	Management activities to annotate, scrub and maintain research data for initial use and later reuse.
Formal Analysis	Application of statistical, mathematical, computational or other formal techniques to analyse or synthesize study data.
Funding Acquisition	Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
Investigation	Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments or data/evidence collection.
Methodology	Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
Project Administration	Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
Resources	Provision of study materials, reagents, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources or other analysis tools.
Software	Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms.
Supervision	Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
Validation	Verification of the overall replication/reproducibility of results, experiments and other research outputs.
Visualization	Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.
Writing - Original Draft	Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft.
Writing - Review & Editing	Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision.

An individual author may hold more than 1 CRediT role. The same role may be assigned to multiple authors. Assignment of a role through CRediT does not in itself confer authorship status: all authors must still satisfy all 4 ICMJE criteria set out in Section 4. Roles that do not entail authorship when held as a sole contribution (e.g., Funding Acquisition, Supervision) must be listed in the Acknowledgments section.

The corresponding author is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the CRediT statement on behalf of all co-authors, and must ensure that all co-authors have reviewed and approved the contributions attributed to them before submission.

5. AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS STATEMENT

Every manuscript submitted to the Journal must include an explicit Author Contributions Statement, positioned after the body text, before the Acknowledgments section and the References. The Author Contributions Statement must:

• identify each author by initials or full name;
• assign one or more CRediT roles to each author using the standardized terminology defined in Section 5;
• be verified and approved by all co-authors before submission;
• identify the guarantor (Section 23) with the notation "Guarantor" appended to their listed roles.

Acceptable example: "A.B.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - Original Draft, Guarantor. C.D.: Formal Analysis, Data Curation. E.F.: Writing - Review & Editing, Supervision."

The Author Contributions Statement will be published as part of the article record. By submission, the corresponding author certifies that the Author Contributions Statement is accurate, has been approved by all co-authors, and reflects the actual contributions made by each individual listed.

6. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Each manuscript must identify a single corresponding author at the time of submission. The corresponding author:

• is the primary point of contact for all editorial communications before, during and after the review process;
• is responsible for submitting the manuscript on behalf of all co-authors, having ensured that each co-author has reviewed the final version and provided explicit approval;
• certifies, by act of submission on the official editorial platform of the Journal, that all authors have agreed to the author list, to the order of authorship, and to the Author Contributions Statement, and that the manuscript is original, has not been previously published, and is not simultaneously under assessment by another journal, in conformity with Editorial Policy Statement (Section 12);
• is responsible for the accuracy of all information entered in the submission system, including the author list, affiliations, ORCID iDs, ROR identifiers, funding sources and conflict of interest declarations;
• is responsible for managing all requests for post-submission modifications to the author list and for obtaining the documented consent of all co-authors for any such modification;
• remains available after publication to respond to editorial queries, to cooperate in post-publication review procedures, and to facilitate access to the underlying data where required.

Where multiple corresponding authors are listed (permitted on a case-by-case basis, subject to scientific justification), a single Responsible Corresponding Author (RCA) must be designated at submission. The RCA is authorized to sign publication agreements, to authorize changes to the article record, and to act on behalf of all authors in any post-publication investigation or correction. The RCA identity cannot be changed after submission without EIC approval.

Corresponding author succession.  If the corresponding author becomes permanently unreachable, incapacitated, or deceased after publication, the co-authors must designate a successor as soon as practicable and notify the editorial office in writing. The successor assumes all responsibilities set out in this section for the published article. If no successor can be designated, the Journal will address any outstanding integrity matters directly through the guarantor (Section 23) or, where applicable, through the authors' institutions.

7. PRE-SUBMISSION AUTHORSHIP AGREEMENT

In conformity with the COPE Discussion Document on Authorship, the Journal expects all authors to have reached explicit agreement on the following elements before the manuscript is submitted:

• the complete list of individuals who qualify for authorship under the 4 ICMJE criteria;
• the order in which authors will be listed;
• the designation of the corresponding author and, where applicable, the Responsible Corresponding Author;
• the CRediT roles assigned to each author;
• the content of the Author Contributions Statement;
• the identity of the guarantor.

By submitting a manuscript, the corresponding author certifies that this agreement has been reached and that no co-author has been included in or excluded from the author list without the knowledge and consent of all other co-authors. The Journal may request written evidence of this agreement at any stage of the editorial process. Authors are encouraged to document it in writing (including via email) to facilitate resolution in the event of any subsequent dispute.

Where a preprint of the submitted manuscript has been deposited on a public server before submission, the author list in the submission must be consistent with the preprint, or any differences must be disclosed and explained in the cover letter; detailed provisions are set out in the Preprint Policy.

8. PROHIBITED AUTHORSHIP PRACTICES

The following authorship practices are strictly prohibited by the Journal and constitute forms of authorship misconduct subject to the corrective measures governed by the Corrections and Retractions Policy:

9.1  Ghost Authorship.  Ghost authorship occurs when an individual who has made a substantial intellectual contribution meeting all 4 ICMJE authorship criteria is not listed as an author, whether because they wished to conceal their involvement, because another party excluded them, or because a systematic arrangement produced the manuscript without attribution. Ghost authorship is a form of misconduct, irrespective of the parties' intent.

9.2  Gift, Honorary and Guest Authorship.  Gift or honorary authorship occurs when an individual is listed as an author solely based on seniority, institutional prestige, personal relationships, financial interest or administrative authority, without having made the contributions required by the ICMJE criteria. Guest authorship occurs when authorship is attributed to an individual for strategic purposes without substantive contribution. Both practices are prohibited.

9.3  Coerced Authorship.  Coerced authorship occurs when an individual is included in or excluded from an author list without their knowledge or against their expressed will. This encompasses situations arising from the exercise of institutional hierarchy, professional pressure, or any other circumstance that overrides the individual's free consent. A particularly common form involves supervisors requiring inclusion on the author list as a condition for providing resources, laboratory access, or approval of a trainee's research, without having made the contributions required by the ICMJE criteria. The deliberate exclusion of a student or trainee who has made qualifying contributions also constitutes coerced authorship. The Journal does not recognize authorship changes made under coercion and may suspend a manuscript pending investigation.

9.4  Fictitious or Stolen Authorship.  The use of a real researcher's identity without their authorization, the fabrication of author identities, or the inclusion of individuals who cannot be independently verified as having participated in the research are treated as identity theft and fictitious authorship. Such practices constitute grounds for retraction in conformity with the Corrections and Retractions Policy (Section 5).

9.5  Paper Mill Activity.  The submission of manuscripts produced by organizations or networks that manufacture fraudulent manuscripts for sale, with fabricated data, fake authorship or compromised review, is treated with particular severity. Submissions identified as paper mill products are subject to immediate rejection or retraction and to notification of the relevant institutions, funding bodies and, where applicable, national research integrity authorities. The field of gynecology and obstetrics has been specifically affected by paper mill activity in recent years; the Journal maintains heightened vigilance for systematic indicators of paper mill involvement.

9. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All individuals who have contributed to the work but who do not meet all 4 ICMJE authorship criteria must be acknowledged in a dedicated Acknowledgments section, positioned after the Author Contributions Statement and before the References. The Acknowledgments section must specify the nature of each acknowledged contribution.

Examples of contributions that belong in the Acknowledgments section rather than in the author list include: technical assistance, statistical consultancy, provision of biological materials or clinical samples, data collection as the sole contribution, language editing, general supervision or department-level support, and acquisition of funding as the sole contribution.

All acknowledged individuals must have provided consent to be named. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining this consent before submission. The involvement of medical writers or professional editorial assistance providers (Section 21) must be explicitly disclosed in the Acknowledgments section together with the source of funding for the service.

10. AUTHORSHIP CHANGES DURING THE REVIEW PROCESS

After submission and before acceptance, additions to, deletions from, or reordering of the author list are permitted only in exceptional circumstances, subject to the following cumulative requirements:

• the corresponding author must submit a formal written request to the editorial office via the official editorial platform of the Journal, specifying the proposed change and the scientific or factual grounds for the modification;
• all existing co-authors, including any author whose removal is being requested, must provide written confirmation of their consent to the change;
• in the case of the addition of a new author, evidence must be provided demonstrating that the new author meets all 4 ICMJE criteria and that their contribution is documented in the updated CRediT statement;
• the final decision on whether to approve the requested change rests with the Editor-in-Chief, whose determination is made based on the evidence provided.

All authorship change requests and their outcome are recorded as part of the manuscript's editorial history. Authorship changes requested solely to qualify for institutional open access arrangements or Article Processing Charge waivers are not considered justified grounds for modification and will be declined.

11. AUTHORSHIP CHANGES AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication, changes to the author list are generally not permitted, in line with international practice. Post-acceptance authorship modifications may be considered only where:

• a demonstrable error in the original submission is identified (e.g. an author was inadvertently omitted despite meeting all ICMJE criteria, as verifiable by the pre-submission record);
• a serious integrity concern requiring correction of the author list is brought to the attention of the editorial office and is corroborated by documentary evidence; or
• the change is required to comply with a verified institutional investigation outcome.

Any post-acceptance authorship change request must be submitted in writing by the corresponding author, must include the written consent of all co-authors, must specify the grounds for the modification in detail, and must be approved by the Editor-in-Chief. The Publisher is informed of all post-acceptance authorship change requests and their outcome. Publication is suspended until the matter is resolved. Post-acceptance changes that are approved are implemented as a Corrigendum registered with CrossRef via the DOI metadata update mechanism.

12. AUTHORSHIP CHANGES AFTER PUBLICATION

Post-publication authorship changes are managed in conformity with the Corrections and Retraction Policy (Section 3 - Corrigendum) and require, in all cases, the formal written consent of all listed authors, following the COPE flowchart for post-publication corrections. The following categories apply:

• Addition of a previously omitted qualifying author: handled as a Corrigendum with a public correction notice published with its own DOI.
• Removal of an author who did not meet the ICMJE criteria: handled as a Retraction or Corrigendum depending on severity, in conformity with the Corrections and Retractions Policy.
• Reordering of the author list: handled as a Corrigendum when scientifically motivated and supported by the written consent of all authors.
• Name change requests for personal reasons: handled in conformity with Section 19 of this policy.

All post-publication authorship modifications are recorded permanently in the article's editorial history and communicated to CrossRef, PubMed and the indexing services to which the Journal is registered.

13. AUTHORSHIP DISPUTES

The Journal does not act as arbiter in authorship disputes between authors. This position reflects the recommendations of COPE and the practice of all major scientific publishers. When an authorship dispute is brought to the attention of the editorial office, the Journal follows the applicable COPE flowchart and the procedure established in the Complaints, Appeals and Whistleblowing Policy. In summary:

14.1  Pre-publication disputes.  The editorial process is suspended immediately upon receipt of a credible notice of dispute. All listed authors are notified and invited to respond within 21 days. If the dispute is not resolved by agreement within 30 days, the matter is formally referred to the institutional authorities of the corresponding author or of the institution(s) with primary jurisdiction. The process does not resume until the dispute is resolved or the referring institution provides a formal determination.

14.2  Post-publication disputes.  The corresponding author and all listed authors are notified and invited to respond within 30 days. The matter is referred to the institution(s) of affiliation for a formal investigation. An Expression of Concern is issued if the institutional investigation is inconclusive, the institution is unresponsive by the deadline, or public notice is required to protect the scientific record, in conformity with the Correction and Retractions Policy (Section 7). The matter is escalated to COPE if institutional channels prove inadequate.

14. EQUAL CONTRIBUTION

Where 2 or more authors have contributed to the work in equal measure - as evidenced by their CRediT role assignments - the Author Contributions Statement and the published article may include an equal contribution declaration, formatted as: "[Author initials] and [Author initials] contributed equally to this work."

An equal contribution declaration does not alter the order of authorship as it appears in the author list. For citation and indexing purposes, the author listed first is recognized as the primary first author. All co-authors must approve equal contribution declarations before submission. They cannot be added or removed after acceptance without the written consent of all authors and the Editor-in-Chief's approval.

15. GROUP AND CONSORTIUM AUTHORSHIP

For large collaborative studies, multicenter trials and research consortium publications, the Journal permits the designation of a named group or consortium as the author, provided that:

• all individual members of the group who meet all 4 ICMJE authorship criteria are identified in a supplementary appendix or a dedicated section of the article, with their institutional affiliations;
• at least 1 named individual author is identified on the title page as taking responsibility for the integrity of the manuscript and serving as guarantor (Section 23);
• the CRediT Author Contributions Statement covers, at a minimum, the named individual authors and specifies the roles of the group as a whole;
• a designated corresponding author is identified for all editorial communications.

Group members who do not meet all 4 ICMJE criteria but who contributed to the work may be listed in the supplementary appendix as contributors, with their individual roles identified, but are not part of the author list and are not indexed as authors by bibliographic services. The corresponding author or the designated group guarantor is responsible for ensuring that all members of the group have consented to the submission and publication.

16. INDUSTRY AUTHORSHIP

Industry involvement in research and authorship is not per se grounds for rejection, provided that all relevant conditions are met. Authors who are employed by or have significant financial relationships with commercial entities (pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, diagnostic companies) must:

• meet all 4 ICMJE authorship criteria, exactly as required for academic authors, with no exceptions;
• declare their affiliation and financial relationship with the sponsoring entity in the Conflict of Interest disclosure;
• accurately describe their role in the research and in the preparation of the manuscript in the Author Contributions Statement and, where relevant, in the Methods section.

For review-type articles, meta-analyses and clinical practice guidelines, the Journal applies heightened scrutiny to industry-employed authors. The Editor-in-Chief retains the discretion to decline submissions where the risk of commercial bias cannot be adequately managed through disclosure. Industry funding does not entitle the sponsor to authorship rights or to control over publication. Any contractual arrangement purporting to grant a sponsor the right to approve, delay or prevent publication is incompatible with the Journal's publication ethics and constitutes grounds for rejection or retraction.

17. ORCID, ROR AND AUTHOR IDENTIFICATION

The Journal strongly recommends that all authors provide their ORCID iD (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) at the point of submission. ORCID iDs should be entered directly in the official editorial platform of the Journal by each author to ensure authenticated linkage between the author's iD and the manuscript. ORCID is free to register at orcid.org and provides a persistent, unique digital identifier that distinguishes researchers unambiguously and enables the creation of a reliable, complete record of their published contributions.

ORCID provision is not a mandatory submission requirement. Its provision is considered an important indicator of authorship transparency and is actively encouraged by the Journal and by the principal international indexing bodies. Authors are encouraged to connect their ORCID record to CrossRef, Scopus and PubMed author profiles to maximize the discoverability and verifiability of their published work. The Journal's position on ORCID as a recommended identifier is consistent with the Editorial Policy Statement (Section 11) and the Peer Review Policy.

Authors are also strongly encouraged to associate their institutional affiliation with an ROR (Research Organization Registry) identifier, where available, in conformity with the Editorial Policy Statement (Section 11)  and CrossRef metadata requirements. ROR provides a persistent, open identifier for research organizations that improves the accuracy of institutional attribution in bibliographic databases and metadata records.

18. AUTHOR NAME CHANGE POLICY

The Journal recognizes that authors may need to update their name in published articles for reasons including gender transition, religious conversion, marriage, divorce or other personal circumstances. The Journal is committed to processing such requests in a respectful, confidential and efficient manner, without requiring justification or documentary proof of the underlying reason.

Name change requests must be submitted in writing to the editorial office by the author concerned. The following procedure applies:

• The author may choose for the name change to be implemented silently (without a public correction notice on the article page or in the PDF) or by means of a formal public Corrigendum, as they prefer.
• Silent name changes are implemented across all versions of the article (HTML, PDF, XML) and the updated metadata is communicated to CrossRef, PubMed, Scopus and other relevant indexing services, without any notice appearing on the article page.
• Where the author prefers a formal public Corrigendum, it is published with its own DOI and linked to the original article in conformity with the Corrections and Retractions Policy.
• Co-authors are not notified of the name change without the explicit consent of the requesting author, to protect their privacy.

The Journal processes name change requests within 30 working days of receipt. All correspondence relating to name change requests is treated as strictly confidential.

19. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND AUTHORSHIP

The Journal affirms 3 non-negotiable principles on artificial intelligence and authorship, in conformity with COPE guidelines, ICMJE recommendations (2025) and the positions of all major scientific publishers:

• AI tools cannot be authors. Generative artificial intelligence tools and large language models cannot be listed as authors or co-authors of published work. Authorship entails accountability for the integrity and accuracy of the work, legal capacity to enter into agreements, and the ability to respond to editorial and scientific queries. AI tools are incapable of fulfilling these obligations. Any manuscript listing an AI tool in the author position will be desk-rejected.
• AI use must be disclosed. Any use of AI tools in the preparation of the manuscript - including in writing, editing, data analysis, image generation or any other aspect of the work - must be disclosed transparently in the manuscript, specifying the tool used, its version or access date, and the nature and scope of the assistance provided. Basic spelling and grammar checks do not require disclosure.
• Human authors bear full and non-delegable responsibility. All listed authors accept complete responsibility for the accuracy, integrity and originality of any content generated with AI assistance, including for errors, hallucinations or inaccuracies introduced by the AI tool. This responsibility cannot be delegated to or shared with the AI tool.

Detailed provisions on the permitted and prohibited uses of AI in research and publication, AI disclosure standards, and the governance of AI-related integrity concerns are set out in the Journal's Artificial Intelligence Policy, to which reference is made for all operational requirements.

20. MEDICAL WRITERS AND EDITORIAL ASSISTANCE

The involvement of professional medical writers, technical writers, or other editorial assistance providers in the preparation of a manuscript must be disclosed by the corresponding author at the time of submission and acknowledged in the published article, regardless of whether the nature of the assistance meets the threshold for authorship.

In conformity with the EMWA Guidelines, the Acknowledgements section must specify: (a) the name and institutional affiliation (where applicable) of the medical writer or editorial assistance provider; (b) the nature of the assistance provided (e.g. writing of first draft, statistical analysis, language editing, figure preparation); and (c) the source of funding for the editorial assistance, where identifiable.

Where the contribution of a medical writer qualifies for authorship under the ICMJE criteria, the medical writer must be included in the author list rather than acknowledged. Failure to disclose a qualifying medical writer constitutes ghost authorship (Section 9.1) and is treated accordingly. Where a professional editorial service uses AI tools in assisting, this must be disclosed as part of the AI use disclosure under Section 20.

21. EQUITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN AUTHORSHIP

The Journal applies the following equity principles specifically in the context of authorship attribution, in conformity with ICMJE 2025 recommendations. Broader DEI commitments applicable to editorial governance, reviewer selection and board composition are governed by the Editorial Board Charter (Section 18) and by the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Policy, to which reference is made.

LMIC researcher exclusion.  The Journal does not condone excluding researchers from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from authorship when the research was conducted at their institutions or with their participation. Such exclusion constitutes potential authorship misconduct (ghost authorship under Section 9.1) and is investigated accordingly. Editors are instructed to be attentive to this practice in conformity with ICMJE 2025 guidance.

Student and trainee authorship.  Institutional seniority and hierarchical position are not recognized as bases for the inclusion or exclusion of authors or for the ordering of authors. Early-career researchers and trainees who meet all 4 ICMJE criteria must be listed as authors. Their exclusion through the exercise of supervisory authority constitutes coerced authorship (Section 9.3). Conversely, their inclusion solely based on trainee status, without meeting the criteria, constitutes gift authorship (Section 9.2).

22. GUARANTORSHIP AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Each published article must identify at least 1 guarantor: an author who accepts overall responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from its conception through to the published article, and who agrees to be accountable for all aspects of the work in the event of any post-publication inquiry, regardless of their individual CRediT role.

The guarantor is identified in the Author Contributions Statement with the notation "Guarantor" appended to their CRediT roles. For large collaborative studies and group authorships (Section 16), the guarantor is the named individual author who assumes responsibility for the integrity of the group's work.

Guarantorship is in addition to, not a substitute for, the accountability obligations of all listed authors under the 4th ICMJE criterion. Every author is required to be accountable for the aspects of the work they contributed to and to cooperate in the investigation and resolution of any integrity concern relating to those aspects. Authors who fail to respond to editorial queries or who become unreachable after publication may be noted as non-responsive in any post-publication correction or expression of concern, in conformity with the Corrections and Retractions Policy.

23. SANCTIONS AND CORRECTIVE MEASURES

Violations of this policy constitute forms of publication misconduct. All applicable procedures and corrective measures - including desk rejection, withdrawal, Corrigendum, Expression of Concern, Retraction, institutional notification, escalation to COPE, and placement on the Journal's internal caution list - are governed in their entirety by the Corrections and Retractions Policy, to which reference is made for all operational provisions. The corrective action is proportionate to the nature and severity of the violation. The Editor-in-Chief determines it in consultation with the Publisher where appropriate. The Journal distinguishes between deliberate misconduct and honest errors; prompt self-correction is recognized as a marker of scientific integrity.

24. RELATED POLICIES

This policy forms part of the Journal's editorial policy framework. All related policies are available on the Journal website.

25. REFERENCE STANDARDS

This policy is drafted in compliance with the following international standards and best practices:

• COPE - Committee on Publication Ethics, Core Practices (current version);
• COPE - Discussion Document: Authorship - Who decides who is an author? (2019, updated 2024);
• COPE - Flowcharts for the management of authorship disputes and misconduct cases;
• COPE - Retraction Guidelines (2025 version);
• ICMJE - Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, including Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors (2024/2025 update);
• CRediT - Contributor Roles Taxonomy, NISO RP-47-2022;
• DOAJ - Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing;
• WAME - World Association of Medical Editors, recommendations on editorial conduct and publication ethics;
• CSE - Council of Science Editors, White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications;
• EMWA - European Medical Writers Association, Guidelines on the Role of Medical Writers in Scientific Publications;
• SAGER Guidelines - Sex and Gender Equity in Research (Heidari et al., 2016);
• ORCID - Open Researcher and Contributor ID, organizational standards and integration guidelines (orcid.org);
• ROR - Research Organization Registry, metadata and identifier standards (ror.org);
• CrossRef - Metadata deposit standards for authorship, ORCID and ROR integration;
• EU Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) for the processing of personal data in the editorial and publication process.