Responsible authorship of papers in PNAS

The National Academy of Sciences has long been a leader in promoting responsible authorship of scientific papers. For example, the 1995 National Research Council report “On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research” (1) outlined guidelines for allocation of credit for discovery. In recent years, the allocation of credit among authors has grown more complex. In 1975, the average number of authors for a PNAS paper was three. Now the average is seven, and some papers have more than 15 authors or no named authors at all, just a consortium representing a group of researchers. When the contribution of each author is unclear, the authors' sense of responsibility for the work can diminish. The PNAS Editorial Board has decided to make explicit the practices the journal has followed to ensure authorship transparency and to introduce new practices that further the mission of the Academy.

We start by including in our Information for Authors …