Publishing ethics authorship and contributorship books

Authorship and contributorship for books

We acknowledge that different disciplines and publication formats have different norms for who is listed as an author. We expect all authors on any content submitted to Cambridge to be in agreement that the authors listed would all be considered authors according to disciplinary norms, and that no authors who would reasonably be considered an author have been excluded.

We also expect all listed authors to take responsibility for the integrity of the work and to be accountable for it. In the event of a dispute or change request (including author order or designation) at any stage of the publishing process, we will be guided by the relevant COPE flowchart, guidance, or case precedents in deciding the appropriate action(s). If these changes raise concerns about the broader integrity of the work further investigation may follow.

Authorship

Where no other criteria are specified, authorship of book manuscripts and of contributed chapters should be based on the below principles. *

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; and/or
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and/or
Final approval of the version to be published; and
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Due to intersections with the contractual process, authorship approaches such as anonymous or pseudonymous authorship, consortia authorship, equal first authorship and appendix authorship must first be discussed with the relevant commissioning editor.

* Outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, available at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

Contributorship

We encourage authors to list anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship in an Acknowledgments section in their publication with permission, for example to recognise the contributions of anyone who provided research or writing assistance.

Disputes

We support our editors in dealing with any authorship disputes, including escalating or seeking advice on cases with COPE or referring to institutions. COPE also provides extensive resources on authorship and authorship disputes, and we encourage anyone involved in editorial decisions to familiarise themselves with these resources.

Author name changes

Cambridge is committed to inclusive and equitable policies and practices and to working with authors who wish to update their name on Cambridge publications. For book publications, name changes can be enacted at any point before delivery of the manuscript, or on release of new editions. Please note that at this time we cannot retroactively change names on existing published editions.

Authors should contact [email protected] to request more information or a name change.

AI Contributions to Research Content

AI use must be declared and clearly explained in publications such as research papers, just as we expect scholars to do with other software, tools and methodologies.
AI does not meet the Cambridge requirements for authorship, given the need for accountability. AI and LLM tools may not be listed as an author on any scholarly work published by Cambridge.
Authors are accountable for the accuracy, integrity and originality of their research papers, including for any use of AI.
Any use of AI must not breach Cambridge’s plagiarism policy. Scholarly works must be the author’s own, and not present others’ ideas, data, words or other material without adequate citation and transparent referencing.