Quick answer: A co-author who dies before a manuscript is published can still be listed as an author, provided they met the substantive-contribution and drafting criteria while alive. Because a deceased person cannot literally give “final approval” or “agree to be accountable” going forward — two of ICMJE’s four authorship criteria — the surviving corresponding author instead files a formal attestation, on the deceased author’s behalf, that those criteria were met, and the byline carries a footnote (often marked with a dagger symbol, †) giving the date of death. This is a documented, journal-recognized practice, not an improvisation, but the exact mechanics — what needs sign-off, from whom, and how the byline is marked — vary by publisher and are worth getting right before submission.
Why this doesn’t fit neatly under ICMJE’s four criteria
The ICMJE authorship criteria require all four of the following to be met by every listed author: substantial contribution to conception/design or data acquisition/analysis/interpretation; drafting or critically reviewing the work; final approval of the version to be published; and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, including investigating and resolving questions about accuracy or integrity. See CASRAI’s ICMJE entry for the organization’s full role.
The first two criteria are backward-looking — they describe work a deceased co-author may well have already done. The last two are forward-looking commitments a deceased person cannot make: they cannot review and approve whatever version of the manuscript is eventually accepted (which may differ, sometimes substantially, from the last draft they saw), and they cannot answer for the work if a question about it arises after publication. This is the specific tension every posthumous-authorship case has to resolve, and it’s why the practice generally accepted by journals is a workaround built on attestation and documentation, not a literal satisfaction of criteria 3 and 4.
What COPE and ICMJE actually say
Neither organization publishes a single dedicated policy document titled “posthumous authorship,” but both have addressed the scenario directly through their case-guidance and discussion channels:
- COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) has taken up deceased-author cases through its Forum case-discussion process (cases titled “Author deceased prior to submission” and “Deceased author” in COPE’s public case database). The consistent guidance to emerge is that a deceased co-author can remain on the byline, marked with a footnote giving the date of death, provided the corresponding author supplies a statement attesting that, to the best of their knowledge, the deceased individual met the definition of authorship — effectively vouching for criteria 1 and 2 on the deceased author’s behalf. COPE’s discussion of these cases has also flagged that the version ultimately submitted and published should not be a significant departure from the version the deceased author actually saw and engaged with; the further the final text drifts from what they reviewed, the harder it becomes to credibly say they would have approved it.
- ICMJE’s own recommendations don’t carve out a deceased-author exception to the four criteria — its authorship-criteria page frames authorship qualification as “the collective responsibility of the authors, not the journal,” which in a posthumous case shifts practically onto the surviving co-authors and the corresponding author to make and stand behind that judgment.
See CASRAI’s COPE Guidelines Explained and ICMJE vs. COPE comparison for how the two organizations’ roles differ more broadly — ICMJE sets the authorship criteria journals adopt, COPE provides case-by-case ethics guidance (including Forum discussions) when applying those criteria gets complicated, as it does here.
How to credit a deceased co-author: the practical steps
1. Confirm they met authorship criteria while alive, and document it
Before anything else, the remaining author team should be able to point to concrete evidence of the deceased author’s substantive contribution and drafting/reviewing involvement — email threads discussing the manuscript, tracked-changes drafts, data-analysis records, prior correspondence about interpretation of results. This isn’t a new requirement specific to posthumous cases; it’s the same evidentiary basis any co-author should be able to point to, made more important here because the person who could otherwise confirm it themselves no longer can.
2. Have the corresponding author write a formal attestation
The corresponding author (or, if the deceased person was themselves the corresponding author, whoever takes over that role) drafts a statement — to the journal, not necessarily published — attesting that, to the best of their knowledge, the deceased co-author met the journal’s authorship criteria and would have approved the version being submitted. Some journals want this as a cover-letter statement; others have a specific author-declaration form field for it. Check the target journal’s instructions for authors, since this isn’t uniformly formatted across publishers.
3. Determine what actually needs sign-off from the estate or institution — and what doesn’t
This is the step most often over- or under-done. A deceased author’s estate, next of kin, or home institution generally cannot retroactively “approve” the manuscript’s scientific content on the author’s behalf — nobody but the deceased person could ever have done that, and journals don’t ask a family member to stand in for scientific judgment they don’t have the expertise to exercise. What next of kin, an executor, or the institution’s research office can meaningfully be asked to do is narrower and more administrative:
- Copyright transfer or licensing agreement — many publishers still require a signed copyright transfer or open-access license form from every author; if the deceased held any such rights, the estate or executor may need to sign on the estate’s behalf, or the journal may accept the surviving authors’ attestation in lieu of it. Publisher-specific — check before assuming either way.
- Conflict-of-interest confirmation — if there’s reason to believe the deceased author held a financial or other interest relevant to the work that isn’t already disclosed, the institution’s research office or the estate may be the only remaining source able to confirm or deny it.
- Institutional responsibility for post-publication queries — some journals and commentators (see the further-reading note below) recommend the deceased author’s home institution formally acknowledge it will help address any post-publication concerns raised about that author’s specific contribution, since the author themselves no longer can.
None of this is a substitute for the corresponding author’s attestation in step 2 — it’s a separate, narrower administrative layer that only applies when copyright, funding-disclosure, or institutional-liability questions specifically require it.
4. Mark the byline and add a footnote
The deceased author’s name stays in its earned position in the author order — posthumous authorship is not automatically demoted to an acknowledgment or moved to last position, and doing so without a substantive reason would misrepresent their actual contribution. A footnote (or endnote, depending on journal style) is added giving the date of death. Symbol conventions vary by publisher:
- A dagger symbol (†) next to the name, keyed to a footnote reading something like “Deceased [date]” — this is the convention used by, among others, the BMJ family of journals.
- A plain parenthetical or footnote notation without a special symbol, e.g. “(deceased, [date])” directly after the name — used by some publishers instead of a dedicated glyph.
- Some journals (Cochrane is a commonly cited example) permit the deceased author’s name to remain through the current version of a living document (e.g. a systematic review) until it is next substantively updated, at which point their continued listing is reassessed against their actual contribution to the updated version.
Always check the specific target journal’s author guidelines rather than assuming one convention applies universally — see CASRAI’s Author Guidelines guide for how to locate and read a journal’s instructions for authors, and the related corresponding-author line formatting guide for how dagger and other symbols are typically typeset.
5. Use CRediT to document exactly what they contributed
Where a journal uses the CRediT taxonomy, assigning specific CRediT roles (e.g. Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft) to the deceased author does useful work here: it makes the basis for their authorship concrete and specific, rather than resting solely on the corresponding author’s general attestation. See CASRAI’s CRediT author statement samples guide for format examples, and Author Contribution Statement for the underlying convention CRediT formalizes.
When the deceased person’s involvement doesn’t clear the bar
Not every deceased collaborator qualifies for authorship, and death doesn’t lower the bar. If someone contributed materials, technical support, funding acquisition without intellectual input, or early-stage discussion that never rose to substantial contribution to the work as eventually published, the appropriate credit is an acknowledgment, not authorship — the same distinction that applies to any non-author contributor while living. See CASRAI’s Acknowledgments vs. Authorship comparison for that underlying line, and Types of Authorship in Research for the fuller taxonomy of contributor categories. A dedication (“This paper is dedicated to the memory of [name], who initiated this project”) is a separate, non-authorship convention some teams use in addition to or instead of a footnoted byline credit, typically reserved for a founding or inspirational role rather than as a substitute for documenting an actual authorship-qualifying contribution.
What if the manuscript changes substantially after the author’s death?
This is the scenario COPE’s guidance flags most directly as a problem: if the surviving authors substantially revise the analysis, conclusions, or framing after the co-author’s death — enough that it’s genuinely uncertain whether the deceased author would have approved the final version — continuing to list them as a full author becomes harder to justify. There’s no bright-line rule for how much change is too much; the honest test COPE’s case discussions point to is whether the corresponding author can still, in good faith, attest that the deceased co-author would have approved the version now being submitted. Where that attestation can’t honestly be made, options include documenting the deceased person’s earlier contribution via CRediT roles scoped to the earlier stage of the work, an acknowledgment, or a dedication, rather than full posthumous authorship.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Silently dropping a deceased co-author from the author list to sidestep the paperwork — this misrepresents the work’s actual contributor history and can itself raise a research-integrity question if the omission is later noticed.
- Assuming next of kin can approve scientific content on the deceased author’s behalf — they generally can’t, and journals don’t expect them to; don’t over-scope what you ask a grieving family member to sign.
- Skipping the corresponding-author attestation because “everyone already knows” the deceased person contributed — journals increasingly expect this documented, not assumed, precisely because it’s the one part of the process a deceased author can’t do for themselves.
- Not checking the specific journal’s instructions for authors before finalizing the footnote convention — symbol choice and required documentation are publisher-specific, and guessing wrong means a late-stage correction request during production.
- Treating “deceased” as interchangeable with “acknowledged” rather than “authored” — death changes the mechanics of crediting someone, not the underlying question of whether their actual contribution meets the authorship bar.
Frequently asked questions
Can a deceased researcher be listed as an author on a paper?
Yes. Journals following ICMJE-derived criteria generally permit it, provided the deceased person met the substantive-contribution and drafting/reviewing criteria while alive, and the corresponding author formally attests to that on their behalf. The byline typically carries a footnote giving the date of death.
Does ICMJE have a specific posthumous-authorship policy?
Not a standalone one. ICMJE’s four authorship criteria don’t include a deceased-author carve-out; the practice that has emerged — corresponding-author attestation plus a death-date footnote — comes from how journals and bodies like COPE apply ICMJE’s existing criteria to this specific situation, not from a dedicated ICMJE policy document.
Do you need permission from a deceased co-author’s family to publish?
Not for the scientific content itself — that’s not something family members are asked to approve. Family or estate involvement is typically limited to narrower administrative matters: signing a copyright transfer or license form if the deceased held relevant rights, or confirming a conflict-of-interest disclosure, and only where the journal’s process specifically requires it.
What symbol is used to mark a deceased author on a byline?
Conventions vary by publisher. A dagger symbol (†) next to the name with a “Deceased [date]” footnote is common (used by BMJ journals, among others); other publishers use a plain parenthetical note instead. Always confirm against the specific target journal’s author instructions.
What happens if a co-author dies partway through peer review or revision?
The remaining authors typically continue the revision process, and whoever becomes (or remains) corresponding author is responsible for the eventual attestation that the deceased co-author would still have approved the finished version. If revisions become substantial enough that this can no longer be said in good faith, the team should reconsider whether full authorship, versus an acknowledgment documenting the earlier contribution, is still the accurate credit.
Should a deceased co-author’s authorship be moved to acknowledgments instead?
Only if their actual contribution didn’t meet the authorship bar in the first place, or if post-death changes to the manuscript are substantial enough that authorial approval can no longer be credibly attested. Death itself is not a reason to demote a genuinely authorship-qualifying contribution to an acknowledgment.
