Authorship Principle

Authorship carries academic credit and responsibility. All listed authors must have made substantial intellectual contributions to the work and must be able to take public responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and presentation of the manuscript.

BJRD does not regard authorship as a courtesy, institutional entitlement, supervisory privilege, administrative reward, or funding acknowledgement. Authorship must be based on genuine scholarly contribution and accountability.

Authorship Criteria

An author must meet all of the following criteria:

• made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work; acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or development of the argument or methodology;
• participated in drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content;
• approved the final version submitted for publication; and
• agreed to be accountable for the accuracy, integrity, and ethical conduct of the work.

Individuals who do not meet all authorship criteria should not be listed as authors, but they may be acknowledged where appropriate and with their permission.

Corresponding Author Responsibilities

The corresponding author is responsible for communication with the journal throughout submission, peer review, revision, production, and post-publication correspondence.

The corresponding author must ensure that all co-authors meet BJRD’s authorship criteria, approve the submission, agree to the author order, provide required declarations, and approve the final version for publication.

The corresponding author must keep all co-authors informed throughout the submission, review, revision, and publication process.

Contributorship and Acknowledgements

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet authorship criteria must be acknowledged with their permission. Such contributions may include technical assistance, data collection support, statistical advice, language editing, administrative assistance, funding acquisition, general supervision, or mentoring.

Acknowledgement does not imply responsibility for the scholarly content of the article unless the acknowledged individual also meets BJRD’s authorship criteria and is listed as an author.

Author Contribution Statement

BJRD encourages authors to describe individual author contributions using a recognised contributorship taxonomy where appropriate. The contribution statement may identify roles such as conceptualisation, methodology, data collection, formal analysis, investigation, writing the original draft, reviewing and editing, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition, software, validation, visualisation, and resources.

The contribution statement should be accurate, transparent, and approved by all authors.

Changes in Authorship

Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors after submission must be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief by the corresponding author.

The request must include a clear explanation and written consent from all listed authors and any author being added or removed. BJRD may pause review or publication while the request is assessed.

Changes in authorship after acceptance are normally discouraged and will be considered only where a clear and justified reason is provided.

Authorship Disputes

BJRD is not normally able to adjudicate factual disputes about individual contributions independently. Where authorship is disputed, the journal may ask the authors to resolve the matter through their institution, employer, research supervisor, ethics committee, or other responsible body.

BJRD may pause editorial processing or publication until the dispute is resolved or until the Editor-in-Chief determines that an appropriate editorial action is necessary.

Authorship Misconduct

BJRD does not accept gift authorship, honorary authorship, ghost authorship, fabricated authorship, unauthorised inclusion or exclusion of authors, or misrepresentation of contributions.

Suspected authorship misconduct may lead to rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or institutional referral depending on the stage and severity of the case.

AI and Authorship

Artificial intelligence systems, chatbots, and generative AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. AI tools cannot take responsibility for scholarly work, approve the final manuscript, manage conflicts of interest, or be accountable for research integrity.

Human authors remain fully responsible for all content, including any content or assistance generated by AI tools. Any material use of AI tools must be disclosed according to BJRD’s AI Usage Policy.