authorship and plagiarism
FAO PUBLISHING
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USER GUIDE
Last update: April 2024

1 Scope of the guidelines

These guidelines outline the principles and criteria for authorship of FAO publications. 

The FAO Publications Taxonomy is the official organizational reference establishing authorship attribution for all publications. Most FAO publications have mandatory corporate authorship, which means that the Organization is the author. Individual authors of these publications will not be attributed as such, as the publications represent FAO’s corporate voice. Some publications may be attributed individual authorship and thus feature the names of the people who authored the content. These publication content categories include working paper, technical study, technical brief, technical report, technical book, journal article, guideline, handbook, manual/guide, and training material. All FAO publications are guided by the Authorship and plagiarism guidelines.

2 Definition and criteria for authorship

Authorship is the creation of an original idea or the development of a piece of work that disseminates intellectual content. Authorship comes with privileges, responsibilities, legal rights and moral rights. 

Following best practice, FAO authorship is based on four criteria:a

  1. substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  2. drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  3. final approval of the version to be published; AND
  4. agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.1

Every author must meet all those criteria, and any contributor who meets all the criteria must be designated as an author. Every individual who meets the first criterion must be given the opportunity to contribute to the subsequent activities which would qualify them for authorship. 

Editors of an edited volume – a curated collection of chapters written by individual authors – qualify for authorship the same way that authors would. In the case of edited volumes, editors are named on the title page, while the authors of individual chapters appear at the start of their respective chapters and in the contributors section. 

Authors must know which co-authors have created which parts of the publication and must have confidence in the accuracy and integrity of their co-authors’ contributions. It is particularly important to be vigilant and avoid fraudulent authorship, whether it is gift authorship (assigning authorship to an individual who has not authored the work) or ghost authorship (not attributing authorship to an individual who has authored the work, thereby resulting in hidden or unacknowledged authorship). It is the authors’ joint responsibility to determine that all individuals named as authors meet all four criteria for authorship, and it is the responsibility of Editorial Committees to ensure that the principles of authorship are applied with integrity and fairness.

FAO is piloting the CRediT contributorship model for selected publications throughout 2024. If you are interested in participating and including more details about your publications’ contributors, see more information below.
Plus sign to click for reading the credit contributorship model

BOX 1 Contributorship and acknowledgements (pilot project in 2024)

Authorship does not specify which contributions each individual author made, nor the contributions of other authors or contributors. To fill this gap and to encourage transparency and integrity in publishing, it is increasingly common for scholarly publications to list the contributions of each person who participated in the work. To this end, in 2024 FAO is piloting, on a voluntary basis, a contributorship model (CRediT Taxonomy)* with some publications in Tier 1 (flagship and high-profile publications) and Tier 2 (research and technical publications) of the FAO Publications Taxonomy. The contributorship model can be applied to publications with corporate authorship and with individual authorship. CRediT does not change FAO’s criteria for authorship.

The contributorship model brings numerous benefits, such as placing equal value on activities ranging from funding acquisition to data curation to editing. It provides clear criteria for transparent and fair attribution of authorship; allows all contributors to discuss and agree on their roles and be recognized for them; gives the opportunity to be acknowledged for more than one role, and for one role to have more than one contributor; and eliminates the possibility of gift authorship. See Table 1 Contributorship model: role definition for more information.


TABLE 1 Contributorship model: role definition
Contributor role
Role definition
Conceptualization
Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
Data curation
Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse.
Formal analysis
Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyse or synthesize study data.
Funding acquisition
Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
Investigation
Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.
Methodology
Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
Project administration
Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
Resources
Provision of study materials, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.
Software
Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
Supervision
Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
Validation
Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.
Visualization
Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.
Writing – original draft preparation
Creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).
Writing – review & editing
Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision – including pre- or post-publication stages.
Note: Contributors’ roles and their definitions have been referred to verbatim from the CRediT – Contributor Roles Taxonomy (niso.org) so as not to alter their meaning.

The contribution of every contributor can be specified using three degrees of contribution: lead, equal and supporting. Table 2 Contributor role table with degrees of contribution can help authors or author teams with outlining and documenting specific contributions. All contributors should be given the opportunity to review and confirm the attributed roles and degrees of contribution.

Once the table has been filled out, a CRediT authorship contribution statement can be placed in the contributors section of the publication. Any ORCID iD icon with a hyperlink to the relevant ORCID profile may be placed next to the name of each contributor. Note that the order of names is not alphabetical but instead follows the order of the roles in the CRediT taxonomy. The authors’ contribution statement should follow this model:

Jane Austen: Conceptualization (lead), Formal analysis (supporting), Methodology (lead), Software (lead), Supervision (equal), Visualization (equal), Writing – original draft (lead), Writing – review & editing (supporting). Adam Smith: Conceptualization (supporting), Data curation (supporting), Formal analysis (lead), Methodology (equal), Project administration (lead), Supervision (equal), Visualization (equal), Writing – original draft (supporting), Writing – review & editing (lead). John Doe: Data curation (lead), Methodology (equal), Visualization (supporting).


TABLE 2 Contributor role table with degrees of contribution 
Contributor role
Jane Austen
Name & degree of contribution
Adam Smith
Name & degree of contribution
John Doe
Name & degree of contribution
–
Lead
Formal analysis
Supporting
–
–
–
–
Investigation
Lead
Equal
Equal
–
Lead
–
–
–
Software
Lead
–
–
Supervision
Equal
–
Validation
–
–
Visualization
Equal
Supporting
Writing – original draft preparation
Lead
Supporting
Writing – review & editing
Lead

‍

Contributions by individuals who do not meet all four criteria for authorship and have not contributed via the CRediT roles may be recognized in the acknowledgements section of a publication. Examples of such contributions may include donorship, proofreading, general administrative support, and facilitation of networks and contacts. All contributors and individuals listed in the acknowledgements need to give their permission to be included there, and to confirm their assigned roles.

FAO publications in Tier 1 (flagship and high-profile publications) and Tier 2 (research and technical publications) may use the contributorship model on a voluntary basis.

For any questions, please email PWS-support@fao.org.

* CRediT is a contributor roles taxonomy maintained by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) listing 14 contributor roles. Since 2014, it has been widely adopted across a range of publishers to increase accessibility and visibility of all contribution to published research.

3 Attribution and informed consent

Where authors or other contributors are FAO personnel writing as part of their work at FAO, FAO may include their names in the relevant publications. Any FAO personnel who do not wish to receive attribution shall have their names omitted, providing they advise the responsible officer accordingly.

All other authors and contributors are required to acknowledge and formally consent in writing that by submitting their contribution for inclusion in FAO publications, they are authorizing the inclusion of their name in the publication and transferring the copyright of the submitted material to FAO for publication under a Creative Commons licence (see 9 Open Access). Accordingly, a short consent statement should be included in the communication with the author or contributor at the time of submission of the content: “By submitting your content for inclusion in FAO publications, you are authorizing the inclusion of your name in the publication and transferring the copyright of the submitted material to FAO.”

All other individuals, such as meeting participants, local beneficiaries of FAO projects, and participants in case studies that are mentioned in the publication, are required to provide their informed consent to be included, according to the principles outlined in the FAO Data Protection Policy. For example, when including the names of meeting/event participants in published reports, the participants should consent to their names appearing in FAO publications at the time of registering for the meeting/event. This should be reflected in the privacy notice for the meeting/event.

4 Order of authorship

If more than one author (or editor, for edited volumes) is involved in the creation of the publication, the order of author names depends solely on the relative contribution of each author to the research and writing, regardless of the authors’ status, hierarchical position, and contract type. The order of authors should be negotiated and decided by all authors at the beginning of each publication project and reviewed regularly during the working process to assess if there are any changes in the magnitude of each author’s contribution. Changes in author status and order may take place many times during the process up to the date of publication. Keeping a record of meetings, discussions and agreements can help with final authorship and contributorship decisions.

Regardless of the number of authors and the length of the document, authors should always be named in publications which qualify for individual authorship as defined by the FAO Publications Taxonomy. For information on where to place author names in a publication, see FAOSTYLE 2.3 Authorship, editorship and required citation. The ORCID iD icon with a hyperlink to the relevant ORCID profile may be placed next to the name of the author or editor on the title page.

5 Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) has firmly entered the domain of content generation and has thus raised ethical questions around responsibility, accountability and transparency. AI-assisted tools (such as Large Language Models, chatbots and image creators) can bring multiple benefits in the authoring process, including saving time by doing menial work such as collecting and sorting data, summarizing content, tagging metadata and other similar activities. FAO acknowledges the utility of AI tools under the principles of responsible and transparent application.

The rule of thumb for any AI-generated content is that human oversight and monitoring are compulsory. AI-assisted technologies are not considered authors as they are not legal persons, cannot hold copyright, cannot assume legal responsibility, and cannot be held accountable for the trustworthiness of their output. Only human authors can certify the accuracy and originality of the published work, can assert that there is no plagiarism and that all quoted material has appropriate attribution and full citations, and can assume responsibility for any issues arising thereof. Therefore, human authors are fully responsible for the published work.

Authors of FAO publications, internal or external to the Organization, are permitted to use AI-generated content only from authorized tools (see Practical Guidance on the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) for FAO official activities). It is strictly forbidden to copy and paste AI-generated output into documents envisaged for publication. The exact use of any AI tool during the process of creating a publication must be stated in the acknowledgements and in the methodology section if the publication has one.

6 Conflict of interest

Any competing interests, whether they involve financial or other support, must be declared by the author, included in the author disclaimer on the copyright page, and reported to the respective Editorial Committee and to the Ethics Office.

FAO uses the following conflict of interest statement: The author(s) declare(s) they have no conflict of interest.

Should a conflict of interest not be disclosed, the publication risks not being published or being retracted after publication. Disciplinary measures may be taken against the misconduct.

7 Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the most common author misconduct. It entails the appropriation of content or ideas produced by someone else, without crediting the source. Plagiarism is a serious breach of ethics. It poses a reputational risk and reduces the credibility of FAO. Products which use third-party copyright material without permission from the copyright holder may lead to legal action against the Organization.

To ensure content in FAO publications is original and free from plagiarism, authors with @fao.org email accounts are encouraged to use the plagiarism-checking software provided by the Publications and Library Branch (OCCP). To obtain access, please email PWS-support@fao.org.

The FAO Publications Taxonomy outlines which categories of publications must undergo a plagiarism check. Checking other publications for plagiarism is strongly encouraged.

Self-plagiarism is discouraged in academic and scientific communities, and FAO authors must avoid it in technical and scientific publications. There are, however, cases where FAO authors may draw on and reuse existing FAO-owned content, such as in summaries, strategy documents, advocacy material, or guidelines that are being adapted for a different country context.

FAO applies the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence to its publications to encourage others to reproduce and reuse the Organization's content, providing that FAO is properly cited. The added value of producing a publication that uses previously published material should be carefully weighed before proceeding. Unit publications coordinators and their Editorial Committees will need to be vigilant on this aspect.

For more information, see Plagiarism check at FAO: workflow and criteria.

8 Outreach and dissemination

Authors of FAO publications are strongly encouraged to communicate about their published work to ensure that the content is widely disseminated and discoverable.

Authors can share the information with their networks and via their social media accounts. Sharing via LinkedIn is particularly encouraged. When linking to the publication, the digital object identifier (DOI) should always be used.

Author identifiers help tracking citations and impact metrics and promote the work of the FAO. Authors of FAO publications are strongly encouraged to use them.

  • The Open Researcher and Contributor ID initiative (ORCID) is a registry where researchers can sign up for a unique contributor identifier. ORCID iDs are used in academic publishing and enhance the discoverability and communication around a published work. They also assist in ascertaining the authorship and contributorship of a publication. An ORCID iD links a contributor to their publications with a digital object identifier (DOI) throughout their career.
  • Google Scholar is a platform for authors of scholarly content. FAO authors of publications with individual authorship (working papers, technical studies, technical briefs, technical reports, technical books and journal articles) are encouraged to create an author profile. This enhances discoverability of the content, helps in tracking citations to the work on the web, and provides impact metrics.
  • A few other identifiers such as Scopus Author ID and Web of Science ResearcherID are available and can be activated by inserting one's ORCID iD.

9 Open Access

Open Access refers to free access to information and unrestricted use of electronic resources for everyone, subject to proper attribution.

All FAO publications and other knowledge products must be deposited in the FAO Knowledge Repository or published through an Open Access publisher. FAO authors who publish in external journals are encouraged to publish in Open Access journals.

FAO authoring teams who seek to co-publish book-length works with external publishers are encouraged to prioritize co-publishers that have Open Access policies that permit the material to be published under Creative Commons licences.

Please refer to the FAO Open Access policy for further information.

10 Checklist

  • Have you agreed with your co-authors on the expected contributions of each author at the beginning of the publication project?
  • If you are participating in the CRediT taxonomy pilot, have you discussed and agreed with all contributors on their contributions?
  • Have you decided on the exact order of names for all authors?
  • Have external authors provided their consent to be named as authors and to transfer copyright to FAO?
  • Is your acknowledgements section up to date and have all individuals agreed to be included there, including informed consent from external contributors?
  • If you are using datasets or other content under copyright, have you obtained permission to use them in the publication?
  • If you have used an AI tool during the creation of the publication, have you outlined its exact use in the acknowledgements, and in the methods section if there is one?
  • If there is any conflict of interest, have you declared it to your Editorial Committee, the FAO Ethics Office and disclosed it in PWS?
  • Have you run a plagiarism check on your manuscript?
  • Have all authors included their ORCID identifiers in PWS?
  • If you are co-publishing with external publishers, have you identified a publisher with an Open Access policy permitting to publish the material under a Creative Commons license?

11 Further reading

12 Notes

1. ICMJE. 2024. Recommendations: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors. [Cited 12 March 2024]. https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html
a. The most well-known authorship guidelines are those by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). They have been adopted by professional and academic organizations in different fields to establish criteria for authorship for their staff and members. The Authorship and plagiarism guidelines refer to them verbatim as not to alter the meaning of the criteria.
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