Regarding a submitted (but not yet accepted) paper from a scientific collaboration, one of the authors has asked whether an instance of academic misconduct or - for that matter - any non-scientific but rather unsavoury personal facts or accusations (e.g. a penal or civil proceedings) can be considered as a valid ground for requesting that the journal remove an author from the paper, as per the initial steps of the current COPE flowchart for removing an author before publication.
This flowchart only refers back to more strict instances of scientific fraud or misconduct such as plagiarism or ghost/gift writing, so that it is not clear whether it would be even fair to initiate such a process, even with the agreement of the author in question.
Questions for the Forum
- Does the need to give due credit to one person's contribution (however small or major) to a piece of research, already undergoing the refereeing process, outweigh the desire of other authors to distance themselves from the author and have them removed?
- Would the response change if there were additional internal relationships in the research team, for example, if the first author was a student, and the author whose behaviour has been deemed to be questionable was the supervisor?
The Forum heard that this particular case concerns a journal where long author lists and long-term collaborations are the norm. The journal therefore expects that cases of this nature may increase in number as sensitivities over behavioural misconduct increase. There are also real-life scenarios where journals have faced en masse requests for authors to be removed, for instance, where political disturbance has brought risks of repercussions for those associated with particular authors.
Many comments referred to the preceding Forum discussion topic on author behavioural misconduct. This had noted, among other things, the difficulties of setting boundaries as to journals’ or publishers’ remits. Editorial teams will need to consider whether allegations against authors are a) proven, b) within the remit of the research environment (and what their stance on this is) and c) whether it is within their purview to investigate or make judgements on behaviour.
That said, in many respects this case can be treated as a straightforward authorship dispute in which case a resolution is generally left to the authors. Given the sensitive nature of the situation it seems less likely than usual that a resolution can be reached in this way, in which case the journal can refer it to the authors’ institution/s.
An alternative model is that of an author accused of research misconduct. In that case the response would usually be that authors agreed to produce the work together and to take public responsibility for it, and so subsequent changes to the authorship list would not be allowed (unless they had been added without their consent). This may need to be nuanced if there are personal safety considerations.
Two further suggestions were made for potential actions. The first is that the publisher could issue a carefully worded disclaimer to the effect that the work had been produced during a period of collaboration which has now ended. This may satisfy co-authors who are worried about being tainted by the behavioural misconduct. However, if this is felt to be beyond the responsibility of the publisher, the author/s could be encouraged to use tools at their own disposal, such as services which allow them to attach information to a DOI, or to use a commenting platform to provide context.
The second suggestion was to consider suppressing the name of the author who has been accused of behavioural misconduct. This is an uncommon practice and is generally used to protect an author from the ramifications of working on a particular type of research. Editors can again refer to their authorship guidelines to direct them, thinking about how they map on to cases where there is an accusation or proven litigation/investigation concerning behavioural misconduct. It is likely that the outcome will differ depending on the details of the case.
COPE is planning to produce a discussion topic in this area and welcomes contributions and examples.
The authors were informed that it was not for the editor, the journal office or the publisher to make a judgement on the alleged behaviour that had resulted in the request for the co-author's name to be removed. As the author concerned contributed to the research reported in the article, their name should remain on the paper unless the co-authors reported publishing or research misconduct specific to the individual that the journal could investigate further with the author's institution .
Before replying to the authors, we explored with our publisher the alternative proposals included in the COPE advice and, neither the issuing of a disclaimer nor the suppressing of the author name was considered a proportionate or suitable response.
After the journal replied, no further request for action was received and the journal now considers the matter to be closed.