For Authors · Free · CC-BY 4.0
For Authors
To write a CRediT statement, list each author and assign the subset of the 14 CRediT roles that describe what they actually did, optionally with a lead / equal / supporting qualifier, then capture it in the structured field your journal provides at submission. This hub covers that workflow plus AI disclosure, ORCID, narrative CVs, and funder mandates for researchers.
What's new this release
- · ORCID vs ROR vs RAiD comparison — direct-answer comparison page
- · Updated AI disclosure guidance — ICMJE, COPE, Nature, NEJM
- · Funder mandates matrix — 30+ funders, four status tiers
Quick paths
Quick paths by what you need
The six author entry-points that cover the great majority of submission, grant, and reporting tasks. Each one is a self-contained guide with worked examples and ready-to-use templates.
CRediT
Write a CRediT contributor statement
The flagship author task. All 14 NISO Z39.104-2022 roles, worked examples for biomedical, qualitative, and surgical papers, and ICMJE alignment.
Learn moreAI disclosure
Disclose AI use in your paper
ICMJE, Nature, NEJM, Lancet, BMJ, JAMA, and COPE policies compared. What to disclose, where in the paper, and ready-to-use template phrasing.
Learn moreNarrative CV (R4RI)
Build a narrative CV
UKRI R4RI (mandatory since January 2024), Wellcome, Royal Society, NIH Biosketch. Four contribution modules, side-by-side templates.
Learn morePersistent identifiers
Get ORCID, ROR, RAiD set up
ORCID for you. ROR for your institution. RAiD for your project. The full PID ecosystem with three-minute setup paths.
Learn moreFunder mandates
Check your funder's position
NIH, UKRI, Wellcome, ERC, NHMRC, Gates, HHMI and 30+ more. Required, recommended, encouraged, or silent on CRediT — with policy citations.
Learn moreMedical lens
Medical-research specifics
CRediT for clinical papers, NSPM-33 disclosure, clinical-trial registration, patient and public involvement — the biomedical author bundle.
Learn moreBy discipline
Tailored to your field
The underlying CRediT, AI-disclosure, and PID guidance applies across disciplines, but the convention-mix and worked examples differ. Pick yours.
By career stage
What to focus on, when
Different parts of the CASRAI corpus matter more at different points in a research career. Use this as a triage tool, not a prescription.
Early-career researcher (ECR)
PhD candidates and recent graduates
The two highest-leverage things you can do are: register an ORCID iD and start using it on every submission, and learn to write a CRediT statement that accurately reflects your contributions to multi-author papers. When you move to fellowship and first-grant applications, the narrative CV format will be expected — start logging contributions across the four R4RI modules now rather than reconstructing them under deadline pressure.
Definition: early-career researcher (ECR) · Guide: narrative CV (R4RI)
Post-doctoral researcher
Building your contribution profile
As a post-doc you are typically running more of the day-to-day science — and you should be claiming CRediT roles like investigation, methodology, formal analysis, and writing-original-draft accordingly. If you're co-leading any phase of a paper with another post-doc or graduate student, use the optional lead/equal/supporting qualifier to make joint leadership visible. This is also the stage where you should begin keeping a clean record of supervisory and mentoring contributions for your eventual principal-investigator applications.
Definition: post-doctoral researcher · Qualifier: lead / equal / supporting
Principal investigator (PI)
Owning the statement at submission
As PI you are usually the corresponding author and therefore responsible for the accuracy of the CRediT statement at submission. That means actively collecting role information from each contributor rather than assigning roles yourself. Pay particular attention to who has done conceptualization, supervision, funding-acquisition, and project-administration — these are the roles most often mis-attributed in practice. Cross-check against your group's contributor-record discipline before you press submit.
Definition: principal investigator (PI) · Guide: writing a CRediT statement
Group leader / senior researcher
Mentorship and recognition
Senior researchers carry an additional responsibility: making contributorship norms operational across your group. That includes setting expectations for early-career authors about role self-assignment, modelling good practice on the papers you co-author, and pushing back against authorship inflation or gift authorship when you see it. The DORA principles on research assessment are the foundational vocabulary for valuing diverse contributions over raw publication counts — worth reading once if you have any role in hiring, promotion, or grant review panels.
Foundational: DORA · Institutional view: For institutions
The PID ecosystem
Five identifiers, one research artefact
Modern research administration runs on persistent identifiers. The CASRAI dictionary defines how they fit together — and our author guides explain which ones you'll be expected to use, in which contexts.
- ORCID — Required by most funders + publishers
- ROR — Replacing GRID for organisation IDs
- RAiD — ISO 23527:2022 — assigned per project
- DOI — Crossref + DataCite + mEDRA
- IGSN / PIDINST — Samples and instruments
Key concepts for authors
The vocabulary you'll meet
A curated subset of the 714-term CASRAI Dictionary — the operational terms that come up most often when authors interact with funders, publishers, and institutional research-management systems.
ORCID iD
Your persistent researcher identifier. Free, requested by every major funder and publisher.
Read definition →Dictionary termNarrative CV
Free-text CV organised around four contribution modules. UKRI R4RI mandatory since Jan 2024.
Read definition →Dictionary termRegistered report
Peer-review of your methods before data collection. Acceptance is independent of results.
Read definition →Dictionary termPreprint
A version posted to a public server before peer review. Most funders and journals now accept them.
Read definition →Dictionary termVersion of record
The publisher's final formatted version. The citable artefact that carries the DOI.
Read definition →Dictionary termData availability statement
Where your data live, how to access them, and any restrictions. Required by most journals.
Read definition →Dictionary termAI-assisted writing
Use of generative AI in manuscript preparation. Must be disclosed under ICMJE and major journals.
Read definition →Dictionary termInformed consent
Participant agreement to take part, having been told what the research involves. Foundational for human-subjects work.
Read definition →Dictionary termLead / equal / supporting
Optional CRediT qualifier indicating how much each contributor did within a given role.
Read definition →Dictionary termPredatory journal
A journal that charges fees without providing legitimate peer review or editorial services. Avoid.
Read definition →Dictionary termPlan S
cOAlition S funder mandate requiring immediate open-access publication of funded research.
Read definition →Dictionary termDORA
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. Move away from journal-impact-factor-based evaluation.
Read definition →Every funder, publisher, and institution asks for the same information about your work in slightly different formats. The CASRAI guides exist so you only have to learn the underlying conventions once.
Templates and tools
Ready-to-use artefacts
Downloadable templates and interactive tools that take you from a blank cursor to a complete CRediT statement, AI disclosure, or citation in under a minute.
CRediT statement templates
Word, LaTeX, and Markdown templates for CRediT statements, AI disclosures, and narrative CVs. Copy and adapt.
Open →Interactive CRediT statement builder
Guided form: enter authors, tick the 14 roles per contributor, optionally pick lead/equal/supporting, export Word or JATS.
Open →Guided AI disclosure
Pick your target journal, answer a short questionnaire about how you used AI tools, get disclosure text matched to that journal's policy.
Open →Cite a dictionary term or CRediT role
Paste a CASRAI URL, get APA, BibTeX, and RIS citations back. Handy for methods sections and supplementary files.
Open →Frequently asked
Author hub FAQ
How do I write a CRediT statement?+
A CRediT statement names each author and lists the contributor roles they performed, drawn from the 14-role NISO Z39.104-2022 vocabulary. Capture it at submission in the structured field your journal provides, not as free-text in the back-matter. See our step-by-step guide with worked examples.
Do all journals require CRediT?+
No, but adoption is now broad and rising. 50+ publishers and most major biomedical journals require it; coverage is more mixed in humanities and qualitative fields. Always check the journal’s instructions to authors. The public CASRAI scorecard tracks which publishers do structured capture and downstream propagation.
What if AI helped write my paper?+
You must disclose substantive use of generative AI tools in manuscript preparation. ICMJE, COPE, Nature Portfolio, NEJM, Lancet, BMJ, and JAMA all require it; basic grammar/spell-check tools are usually exempt. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. See the AI disclosure guide for the full policy comparison.
How do I get an ORCID iD?+
Register at orcid.org — registration takes about three minutes and the iD is free for life. Most major funders (UKRI, NIH, Wellcome) and publishers now require an ORCID iD on submissions. See our PID guide for how it interacts with ROR and RAiD.
What is a narrative CV?+
A narrative CV is a free-text CV format organised around four contribution modules (generation of knowledge, development of individuals, the wider research community, broader society) rather than raw publication counts. The UKRI R4RI has been mandatory across UKRI applications since January 2024. See our narrative CV guide for templates and worked examples.
Where do I declare research-data outputs?+
Research-data outputs are declared in the manuscript’s data-availability statement, deposited in a discipline-appropriate repository (with a DOI), and cited in the references list using DataCite-style metadata. The CASRAI Dictionary defines the canonical terms — see the data-management domain.
Related areas
Other hubs you might need
Authors are rarely only authors. These are the other CASRAI hubs that come up most often alongside the author workflow.
CRediT taxonomy overview
The 14-role NISO Z39.104-2022 standard, its history, governance, adoption, and the canonical role URIs.
Visit hub →For librariesLibrary guidance
For repository-deposit questions, open-access workflows, APC management, and institutional CRediT capture.
Visit hub →ImplementORCID API integration
For the technically curious author or developer: how publishers and systems push your CRediT-tagged work into your ORCID record.
Visit hub →ResourcesFoundational bibliography
The papers that built the contributorship, attribution, and research-administration vocabulary you encounter every day.
Visit hub →
