This policy ensures that contributors who have made substantive intellectual contributions to an article are given credit. The contributors understand their role in taking responsibility and being accountable for what is published. Contributors are either author contributors (meaning that they meet all four authorship criteria of ICJME– see below) or non-author contributors.

IMJ credits and lists contributors in two ways:

• Authorship – IMJ publishes a list of authors’ names at the beginning of the paper.
• Contributorship – IMJ publishes a contributorship statement along with author affiliation.

Authorship; The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (ICMJE Recommendations 2019) recommends that authorship be based on the following four criteria:

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

Contributors: The ones who have contributed materially to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship should be described clearly in the contributor ship statement.

Corresponding author: The corresponding author, should take primary responsibility for completing all necessary actions after acceptance of the manuscript and communicating with the journal and with readers after publication. All email communication from IMJ will be sent to the corresponding author only.

Alteration to authorship: If an author’s affiliation has changed during the course of the work, the author may either list the affiliation at the time that the research (or most significant portion of the research) was conducted, or their current affiliation, or both. The change of affiliation can be explained in an acknowledgments section.

Deceased authors; Deceased persons deemed appropriate as authors should be highlighted to the Editorial team at the time of manuscript submission and this information should also be included in the authors’ contributor ship-statement.

Contributor-ship statement; A contributor-ship statement is required for all manuscripts submitted and should outline who has contributed to the planning, conduct, and reporting of the work described in the manuscript. A contributor-ship statement should include author contributors, non-author contributors, and group author contributors (collaborators). Contributors who have contributed materially to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship should be described clearly in the contributor-ship statement; for example, “served as scientific advisors”, “critically reviewed the study proposal”, “collected data” or “provided and cared for study patients”.

Acknowledgments; An acknowledgment statement may be included at the end of the paper, detailing those who helped in carrying out the research but who have not been recognized as contributors, as well as for personal expressions of gratitude.

Updated February 17, 2022