A statement of authorship is a signed declaration, submitted alongside a manuscript, in which each listed author certifies specific facts about their own authorship — typically that they meet the journal’s authorship criteria, that they have read and approved the final version of the manuscript, and that they agree to be held accountable for it. It is a submission-time verification document, not published content. This is the point where it most often gets confused with two things it is not: an author contribution statement, which is the published text describing what each author actually did, and a CRediT statement, which is a structured, taxonomy-based version of that same published text. A statement of authorship can exist without either of those — some journals require only a signed declaration and never publish a role-by-role breakdown at all.
What makes something a statement of authorship
Operationally, a document counts as a statement of authorship if it is (a) signed or otherwise formally attested by each named author individually — not by the corresponding author on the group’s behalf, (b) submitted to the journal or institution as part of the submission package rather than incorporated into the article itself, and (c) framed as a certification of facts about authorship status, rather than a narrative description of contributions. Many publishers distribute a standard template for this: Elsevier and SAGE, among others, publish downloadable author declaration forms that ask each co-author to sign individually before or during submission.
What a statement of authorship typically certifies
The exact wording varies by publisher, but statements of authorship built around the ICMJE authorship criteria generally ask each signer to affirm some combination of the following:
- That they made a substantial contribution to the work’s conception, design, data acquisition, or analysis and interpretation.
- That they participated in drafting the manuscript or critically reviewing it for important intellectual content.
- That they have read and given final approval of the version submitted.
- That they agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work, including ensuring questions about its accuracy or integrity are appropriately investigated and resolved.
- That the manuscript, or a substantially similar version, is not simultaneously under consideration elsewhere.
- That they agree with the order of authors as listed, and have disclosed any relevant conflicts of interest.
ICMJE’s own position is that authorship qualification is the author group’s responsibility, not the journal’s: “it is the collective responsibility of the authors, not the journal to which the work is submitted, to determine that all people named as authors meet all four criteria… it is not the role of journal editors to determine who qualifies or does not qualify for authorship.” A signed statement of authorship is the mechanism publishers use to put that responsibility on record in writing, rather than relying on an unverified assertion from the corresponding author.
Statement of authorship vs. author contribution statement vs. CRediT statement
| Document | What it does | Published with the article? | Who provides it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Statement of authorship | Certifies that each author meets authorship criteria, approved the final version, and agrees to be accountable | Usually no — held by the journal as a submission record | Each author individually, typically by signature |
| Author contribution statement | Describes, in free text, what each author actually did on the project | Yes, in the article’s front or back matter | Usually drafted by the corresponding author with input from co-authors |
| CRediT statement | Maps each author to a fixed set of 14 standardized role labels | Yes, in the article’s front or back matter | Usually drafted by the corresponding author, assigning roles from the CRediT taxonomy |
The three are not mutually exclusive. A single manuscript submission can require all of them: a signed statement of authorship from every author as a condition of submission, plus a published CRediT-based contribution statement in the final article. Journals that use CRediT still generally require an authorship declaration separately, because CRediT records what someone did, not whether they are entitled to be listed as an author at all — that threshold question is what ICMJE’s four-part criteria exist to answer, and what a statement of authorship formally attests to.
Who signs it, and when
Because the point of the document is individual accountability, journals that require a statement of authorship generally ask for a separate signature from every listed author, not one signature from the corresponding author on the group’s behalf. In practice this is usually collected at submission, either as a single form circulated for all co-authors to sign or as individual per-author forms consolidated by the corresponding author before upload. Some journals also require re-attestation if the author list, author order, or manuscript content changes materially between submission and acceptance.
Why journals ask for a separate signed statement at all
A published contribution statement or CRediT statement is written by, or at least reviewed and approved by, the corresponding author, and it is possible for it to overstate or understate what a given co-author actually did without that co-author having verified it in writing. A signed statement of authorship closes that gap: it is each author’s own attestation, collected before publication, rather than a description someone else wrote on their behalf. This is also the document journals and institutions rely on when an authorship dispute arises after publication — it is evidence of what each person agreed to at the time of submission, independent of what the published article says.
A related but distinct use: thesis and dissertation authorship declarations
Some universities, particularly in Australia, the UK, and continental Europe, require a “statement of authorship” as a front-matter declaration in a thesis or dissertation. This version is different in kind, not just in setting: it is typically a single-author declaration that the submitted work is the candidate’s own, has not been submitted elsewhere for a degree, and correctly acknowledges any jointly authored material included in the thesis (common in “thesis by publication” formats). It certifies originality and proper attribution of one person’s own work, rather than certifying multiple people’s individual contributions to a shared manuscript. The journal-submission sense described above is the one most researchers encounter repeatedly across their publishing career, and is the focus of this page.
Frequently asked questions
Is a statement of authorship the same as a contribution statement?
No. A statement of authorship is a signed declaration, usually not published, in which each author certifies they meet authorship criteria and approve the final manuscript. A contribution statement is published text describing what each author did. Some submissions require both.
Does a statement of authorship need to be published with the article?
Generally no. It is typically collected by the journal as part of the submission record and is not part of the published article, unlike an author contribution statement or CRediT statement, both of which are published.
Who has to sign a statement of authorship?
Each listed author individually, not only the corresponding author, since the document exists specifically to record each person’s own attestation that they meet authorship criteria and approve the work.
What happens if a co-author refuses to sign?
This usually signals an unresolved disagreement about authorship criteria, contribution, or author order that should be resolved before submission. If it surfaces after submission or publication, it is handled as an authorship dispute, generally following the journal’s or COPE’s dispute-resolution guidance rather than the original declaration form.
