CRediT where credit’s due: rolling out a CRediT contribution scheme in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences

The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) sets out to ensure that all contributors to scholarly outputs (for example papers) are appropriately acknowledged. The 14 Contributor Roles define the various contributions that might be considered e.g. project conceptualisation, data collection (investigation) and writing. These allow academics and publishers to make explicit who contributed what to each output. The scheme has had wide uptake amongst publishers (a good thing) and while it is designed to improve the transparency and recognition of contributor responsibilities it stops short of demanding any sort of change to one of the most important aspects of publication: authorship.

We wanted to take CRediT further. We felt that anyone who has materially contributed towards a research output should be included as a co-author. We felt strongly that no one should be included in an author list who has contributed less than anyone else who is not included in that author list.

Most research institutions (including Cardiff) make it clear that an author must have made a substantial intellectual contribution to an output and that assisting in the acquisition of data is not sufficient to earn the title of author.

Dictionary definitions of ‘intellectual’ include:

• “involving a person’s ability to think and to understand ideas and information” and
• “of or belonging to the intellect or understanding”.

Is it possible to perform a complex procedure in the lab without thinking about and understanding what we are doing? Would we not expect a group of laboratory technicians to think critically and understand what they were doing and why? Of course, these questions are rhetorical.

In March 2022 we started work on the EARTH CRediT Contribution Scheme, aimed at giving credit to all individuals who contribute materially towards the science we produce and publish. While research technicians have historically been acknowledged at the end of a paper, this does little for their career prospects and probably goes unnoticed most of the time.

The scheme we designed was straightforward, we would allocate a unique number to any output where the lead or senior author could assure us that:

1. all those who contributed materially to the work are included in the author list unless they prefer to be mentioned only in the acknowledgements
2. no member of the author list contributed less than any other person who is not a member and would like to be.

The number could be included in the acknowledgement section and would act as an explicit statement of our commitment to equitable representation: “This is Cardiff EARTH CRediT contribution #…”

We presented the scheme to the School in May 2022. Initial feedback was mixed; some staff were positive but others opposed the idea of adding to their administrative burden and many suggested that they already included all those who deserved inclusion anyway. We reduced the burden by simply requiring the lead/senior author to return the form with the title, destination journal and acceptance date.

The scheme started on May 27 2022. By the end of September only 2 numbers had been issued (and one of those, was for a paper of mine). During that time EARTH staff had been lead author on 11 publications.

Feedback included low scheme awareness and a lack of clarity as to which papers were eligible. For example, if a paper did not use technical support, then surely it complied with the scheme without making this explicit? I admit I was not expecting this as I had assumed that everyone would want to engage with the scheme to show our School community (and the world outside) that we are truly signed up to recognising the contributions of all our colleagues. Making this explicit in all our papers (whether or not they involved the effort of others) would make it clear to all that we always consider fair acknowledgment.

Another problem was the fact that turn-around times between acceptance and publication are now typically very short, so people were missing their opportunity to apply for the scheme. At the suggestion of our Research Manager, Andrew Emery, we decided people should apply for the scheme before they submit a paper. This way, they would not have to remember to apply after acceptance.

In May 2023 we reissued the scheme with this modification. We sent information to all staff and postgraduate research students and placed posters around the School, but by July we had not seen an increase in uptake. I asked our Research Centre leads to help spread the word and was surprised by the reply that the scheme was perceived by some as merely a tick box exercise for the next REF. Having written the Environment Statement for our submission to REF2021 I am aware of the importance of quantifiable improvements to the research environment, but this can only reflect real improvement and tick box exercises make a mockery of the whole thing. Changes we make to research culture have to be aimed at improving research culture. If they can be quantified for the next REF exercise then great, but that is not their purpose.

In early November I received the following message from a colleague “…I just wanted to say thanks for your efforts trying to encourage people to include technical staff on papers for their contributions. I’m currently involved in X manuscripts from lab users – unprecedented since my time in Cardiff… I think people are more aware that they should be doing this thanks to you raising it as an issue.”

As of December 2023, we have issued 22 EARTH CRediT Contribution numbers. This is still well below the total number of papers led by staff in the School, but I think we are travelling in the right direction. Perhaps this blog will encourage more of our staff to engage with the scheme and perhaps other Schools will introduce similar processes. Personally, I think it is a no-brainer (and no, that is not meant with any sense of irony).