Authorship and Contributorship Policy

Research in the Mathematical and Natural Sciences (RMNS) requires authorship to reflect genuine intellectual contributions and accountability.

1. Authorship Criteria

All listed authors must meet the following four criteria, based on ICMJE recommendations:

  1. Make substantial contributions to research conception or design, or to data acquisition, analysis, or interpretation.

  2. Draft the manuscript or critically revise its important intellectual content.

  3. Approve the final manuscript.

  4. Accept accountability for the integrity and accuracy of the research.

Individuals who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged rather than listed as authors.

2. Author Contributions

All manuscripts must include an Author Contributions Statement using relevant CRediT roles:

Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Writing – original draft; and Writing – review and editing.

CRediT roles describe contributions but do not independently establish authorship eligibility.

3. Author Order and Correspondence

All authors must agree on authorship order and manuscript submission.

The corresponding author is responsible for editorial communication, accurate metadata, co-author approval, and required declarations.

4. Authorship Changes

Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors require a written explanation, agreement from affected authors, and editorial approval.

5. Unacceptable Authorship Practices

Gift, guest, ghost, coercive, and misleading authorship are prohibited.

Funding acquisition, administrative assistance, general supervision, proofreading, or translation alone does not establish authorship eligibility.

Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors.

6. Disputes

Authorship disputes may be referred to relevant institutions. RMNS may suspend editorial processing while significant disputes are being resolved.