Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A research nurse who coordinated patient recruitment, named in the acknowledgements with their consent
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A funder thanked in a generic 'we acknowledge funding from X' line is not an acknowledged contributor in the named-person sense
Editorial commentary
An acknowledged contributor is named in a research output’s acknowledgements section rather than in the author byline. ICMJE recommends this route specifically for contributions that are real and substantive but that do not meet all four authorship criteria — conception or design (or acquisition/analysis/interpretation of data), drafting or critically reviewing the work, final approval of the published version, and accountability for its accuracy. Naming someone in acknowledgements is not a lesser courtesy; ICMJE treats it as the correct, expected outcome for this class of contribution, not a fallback.
How it differs from related terms: “Acknowledged contributor” names the mechanism — credit placed in the acknowledgements section — while non-author contributor is the broader status covering anyone left off the byline, including people credited through a CRediT-only contributor list or a materials/funding statement instead. Roles commonly (though not always) credited this way include a domain expert advisor, technical staff, and a medical writer — each becomes a co-author instead, not an acknowledged contributor, once their input rises to a CRediT-recognised role and meets all four ICMJE criteria.
Good practice names the person, their affiliation, and the specific help given — “we thank Dr. X for statistical advice on the primary model” — rather than a blanket thank-you, and obtains the person’s consent before publishing their name. Journals that require a formal author contribution statement alongside the byline increasingly expect the same specificity for acknowledgements.
References
- ICMJE Recommendations, “Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors”
- COPE Authorship Discussion Document (2019)
Also known as
Acknowledged person · Named acknowledgement
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Acknowledged contributor"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/acknowledged-contributor" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/acknowledged-contributor",
"name": "Acknowledged contributor",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/acknowledged-contributor",
"description": "An individual whose contribution to a research output is recognised in the acknowledgements section rather than by authorship, typically because their contribution does not meet all four ICMJE authorship criteria but is substantive enough to warrant named credit.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/credit-extensions#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/acknowledged-contributor",
"alternateName": [
"Acknowledged person",
"Named acknowledgement"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"author": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
},
"datePublished": "2026-05-21T01:57:49",
"dateModified": "2026-09-05T14:21:53",
"inLanguage": "en-GB",
"isAccessibleForFree": true
}
