My Name was Taken off the Paper !

One of the commonest queries to the 21 Group is about contested authorship. Politics around paper authorship is particularly an issue in STEM subjects where collaborations are the norm, less so in the humanities. Queries usually come from students & postdocs. This is a typical query:

I’m seeking advice on an issue I experienced

I was the first author on a paper (as agreed by the supervisor). I did most of the work, I completed the final version of the manuscript (analysis, write-up etc). However, my supervisor terminated my contract, removed my name from the paper and has taken the credit for the work, despite not directly contributing to it.

Are there steps I can take to address this situation?

This is a reasonably clear-cut example. The postdoc did enough to warrant authorship and was the agreed first author before the relationship with the supervisor broke down. Complete removal as a co-author seems unfair and may even have been an act of spite or retaliation.

There are two possible steps for recourse, though only one is likely to be productive.

First, if the paper has been submitted to a journal, then write to the Editor. Many journals now have protocols for authorship (and perhaps all should). For example, medical journals often state:

Authorship credit should be based on the following:

1. substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. drafting the article or substantively contributing to revisions in intellectual content;
3. final approval of the version to be published;
4. 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 must meet all four criteria for authorship

If you can demonstrate to the journal editor that you may have fulfilled the criteria for authorship, then processing of the paper will be put on hold while the journal investigates. In our experience, this almost always happens if the journal has a good reputation in the field. We do know of examples in which papers have been withdrawn in these circumstances, or authorship lists have been corrected.

Secondly, you can complain to your head of department or institute. If you make a formal complaint, this will kick-start an investigation. (In principle, you can also complain to your Funding Agency, but they will almost always tell you to use your university or research institute’s complaints procedure). Here, you should be under absolutely no illusions. The supervisor is much more valuable and influential than any postdoc or graduate student. Any investigation will simple exonerate your supervisor. We recommend that you still complain, but it is best to have no naive dreams about fairness of outcome.

The are also of course less clear-cut cases.

Perhaps you helped take some exploratory data that was not used in the final paper. Perhaps you participated in one or two discussions and contributed to the general direction of the work without further involvement. Was it ethical for the supervisor to exclude you from further data collection and analysis or to not involve you fully in future discussions and developments? Perhaps not. Does this mean you should be an author on the paper? Also perhaps not, though a different supervisor might have made a different decision and behaved more generously and inclusively during the project.

In such less clear-cut cases, given the power hierarchies in academia, there might not be much you can do to protest your exclusion from a paper. You should certainly present your argument to your supervisor as to why you feel you should have been included. It may be that there is a perfectly good reason, or it may be that there isn’t. If this is unsuccessful, we normally don’t recommend taking it much further. Depending on your supervisor’s character, persisting could jeopardize your academic career. Some battles, especially as a vulnerable graduate student or postdoc, may not be worth the fight — even if you may rightly feel aggrieved. Given the intransigence of most university Human Resources departments, any battle will be grotesquely time-consuming — and an early-career researcher generally can’t afford such waste of time.