Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship means two things: credit for the work, and responsibility for it. Every author listed on an SSG article must meet all four criteria below, which are based on the ICMJE recommendations.

1. A substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to acquiring, analysing, or interpreting its data.
2. Drafting the manuscript, or critically revising it for important intellectual content.
3. Approving the final version to be published.
4. Agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work, and making sure that questions about its accuracy or integrity are properly investigated and resolved.

Some contributors do not meet all four criteria. Examples are people who provided funding, general supervision, technical help, writing assistance, or language editing. They are named in the Acknowledgements, with their permission, and not listed as authors.

Every article includes an Author Contributions statement. It uses the 14 roles of the CRediT taxonomy (Contributor Roles Taxonomy, ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022): conceptualization; data curation; formal analysis; funding acquisition; investigation; methodology; project administration; resources; software; supervision; validation; visualization; writing – original draft; and writing – review & editing. The corresponding author submits the statement on behalf of all authors, using the Author Contribution Form.

The corresponding author is the journal's main contact. Their responsibilities are to:

• Make sure all co-authors have seen and approved the manuscript, and agree to its submission.
• Make sure all declarations are complete and accurate: funding, competing interests, ethics, data availability, and AI use.
• Respond to editors and reviewers during review, and after publication if queries arise.

The corresponding author is strongly encouraged to provide an ORCID iD, and so are all co-authors. ORCID iDs that are provided are included in the published article and in its Crossref metadata.

Each author's affiliation is the institution where they did the work. If they have since moved, their current address may be added as a note. Affiliations must be complete and accurate: department, institution, city, and country. Listing an institution where the author has no real role in the work is misconduct.

• Guest or gift authorship: listing someone who does not meet the criteria, for example because of seniority or to make the paper look more credible.
• Ghost authorship: leaving out someone who made a substantial contribution, such as a professional writer who is not acknowledged.
• Buying, selling, or trading authorship: this includes authorship positions offered by paper mills or agents. It is treated as serious misconduct and can lead to retraction and a submission ban.

• Before acceptance: a request to add, remove, or reorder authors must come from the corresponding author. It must give the reason, and include written agreement from every author, including anyone being added or removed.
• After acceptance: changes are accepted only in exceptional circumstances, and with the Editor-in-Chief's approval.
• After publication: changes need a published correction, and are handled under COPE guidance.
• Authorship disputes are settled by the authors and their institutions. The journal does not judge who deserves authorship. It may pause handling of the manuscript until the dispute is resolved.

Group names (consortia) may be used if every member listed under the group meets the authorship criteria. Members who do not meet them are listed separately as collaborators. A person who died during the research may be listed as an author if they met the criteria. Their death is noted in a footnote, and their next of kin or institution is informed where possible.