Contributor roles in basic science

Basic-science papers tend to have small, deeply collaborative author lists where everyone has had their hands on the data at some point. CRediT in this context distinguishes the conceptual contribution (the hypothesis, the model, the prediction) from the experimental contribution (running the assays, the syntheses, the simulations) and from the analytical contribution (fitting the model, doing the statistics).

The high-impact basic-science journals — Cell, Nature, Science and the discipline-specific Cell Press, Nature Portfolio and Royal Society of Chemistry titles — all accept CRediT statements. Some still print only a narrative paragraph, but the underlying structured metadata is increasingly captured at submission.

• Conceptualization in basic science is often where the senior PI’s role concentrates: the idea, the framing, the question. Distinguish from Supervision, which is about ongoing oversight.
• Methodology covers protocol development; Investigation covers running the experiment. Where the methodology is novel and the paper’s contribution is partly methodological, recognise both.
• Computational work in basic science is Software (writing the code) plus Formal Analysis (running it on the data) plus often Methodology (designing the computational approach).
• Reagent generation — plasmids, antibodies, mouse lines, compound libraries — is Resources. When the reagent itself is the contribution of a separate group, cite their preceding paper and name them under Resources.
• Theoretical-only papers are an awkward fit. Treat the derivation as Methodology + Formal Analysis; treat the framing as Conceptualization; treat the writing as Writing – Original Draft.