CRediT Taxonomy
Last Updated: October 2026
This policy is part of ETFLIN's Editorial Policies.
ETFLIN adopts the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) to improve transparency in scholarly contributions and provide a consistent description of the work performed by authors of published research. CRediT comprises 14 standardized contributor roles that identify the different types of contributions involved in producing a research output.
Developed through a community-led initiative and approved as an ANSI/NISO standard, CRediT helps readers, editors, institutions, and other stakeholders understand how research was conducted and who contributed to particular aspects of the work. It supplements traditional authorship information by providing a more detailed account of individual contributions.
Authors are required to provide CRediT contribution statements during manuscript submission. The statements must accurately reflect the contributions made to the work and must be reviewed and approved by all listed authors. Approved contribution statements will be published alongside the final article and incorporated into the associated publication metadata where supported by ETFLIN's publishing systems.
Purpose and Scope
This policy establishes the requirements for assigning, verifying, reporting, and maintaining contributor roles in manuscripts submitted to ETFLIN journals.
It applies to all authors submitting scholarly work to ETFLIN, including original research articles, review articles, and other manuscript types for which an author contribution statement is required. The applicable roles depend on the nature of the work being reported. Not every role will be relevant to every publication.
The policy also establishes how CRediT statements relate to authorship eligibility, acknowledgments, editorial verification, and post-publication corrections.
For the authoritative role definitions and additional implementation guidance, authors may consult the official CRediT Contributor Role Taxonomy and its role descriptors.
Relationship Between CRediT and Authorship
CRediT describes the specific contributions made to a research output; it does not independently determine who qualifies for authorship. Assigning one or more CRediT roles does not automatically establish eligibility for authorship, nor does the absence of a particular role necessarily disqualify an individual from authorship.
All listed authors must satisfy the authorship criteria established in ETFLIN's Authorship Policy. These criteria include substantial scholarly contribution, participation in drafting or critically revising the manuscript, approval of the final version, and accountability for the integrity of the work.
CRediT and authorship serve complementary purposes. Authorship establishes the individuals accountable for the published work, while CRediT explains the nature of their respective contributions.
Individuals who contribute to a project without satisfying all authorship criteria should be acknowledged appropriately rather than listed as authors. Their contributions may be described in the Acknowledgments section where appropriate, subject to the relevant editorial requirements and their permission to be identified.
Authorship must not be granted solely on the basis of academic seniority, institutional position, funding, general supervision, or administrative responsibility. Likewise, an individual must not be excluded from authorship merely because another contributor holds a more senior position. Further requirements are provided in ETFLIN's Authorship Policy.
The 14 Contributor Roles
ETFLIN uses the 14 standardized CRediT roles listed below. The definitions follow the official CRediT descriptors. The activities described are intended to clarify the scope of each role and should be interpreted according to the actual work performed.
Conceptualization
Ideas; formulation or evolution of the overarching research goals and aims.
This role covers the development of the central research question, hypothesis, objectives, or intellectual framework of the study.
Data Curation
Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data, and maintain research data, including software code where necessary for interpreting the data itself, for initial use and later reuse.
This role covers the organization, documentation, cleaning, labeling, maintenance, and preparation of research data for interpretation, verification, and subsequent reuse.
Formal Analysis
Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
This role covers analytical work used to derive findings from research data, including statistical analysis, mathematical modeling, computational analysis, and other formal analytical methods.
Funding Acquisition
Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
This role identifies individuals responsible for obtaining the financial resources that supported the research. Receiving funding or holding an administrative position does not, by itself, establish authorship eligibility.
Investigation
Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments or collecting data and evidence.
This role covers the practical execution of research activities, including experiments, measurements, observations, fieldwork, participant recruitment where relevant, and the collection of data or other evidence.
Methodology
Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
This role covers the development or design of research methods, experimental procedures, analytical approaches, protocols, and models used to conduct the study.
Project Administration
Management and coordination responsibility for the planning and execution of research activities.
This role covers the coordination of research tasks, schedules, personnel, and operational activities necessary to carry out the project.
Resources
Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.
This role covers the provision of resources necessary for conducting the research. Providing resources alone does not automatically qualify an individual for authorship.
Software
Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
This role covers substantive software development and technical work associated with implementing, modifying, or testing code used in the research. Merely using existing software to perform routine tasks does not automatically establish a Software contribution.
Supervision
Oversight and leadership responsibility for research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
This role covers substantive oversight, research leadership, and mentorship related to the planning and conduct of the work. Supervision alone does not automatically satisfy the journal's authorship criteria.
Validation
Verification, whether as part of the activity or separately, of the overall replication or reproducibility of results, experiments, and other research outputs.
This role covers work undertaken to check whether results, analytical procedures, experiments, or other outputs are reliable and reproducible. It should be assigned when such verification was actually performed, not simply because an individual approved the manuscript.
Visualization
Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization or data presentation.
This role covers the preparation of figures, diagrams, charts, graphical representations, and other visual presentations of research findings or concepts.
Writing – Original Draft
Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft, including substantive translation.
This role covers the preparation of the initial manuscript text or substantive translation that contributes to the intellectual presentation of the work.
Writing – Review & Editing
Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work by members of the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary, or revision, including pre- or post-publication stages.
This role covers substantive critical review, intellectual revision, commentary, and editing of the scholarly content. Routine proofreading or administrative formatting alone should not be represented as a substantive contribution without an appropriate basis.
The roles may overlap in practice, but each assignment must represent an actual contribution. Authors should select roles based on the work performed rather than attempting to use every available category.
Mandatory Requirements
All listed authors must be assigned at least one CRediT role during manuscript submission. Each assigned role must accurately reflect the author's actual contribution to the research or published work.
An individual may be assigned multiple roles when their contributions span several activities. The same role may also be assigned to multiple authors when they jointly performed that activity. There is no requirement to use all 14 roles for every manuscript.
ETFLIN does not require every author to be assigned the same roles or to receive a role simply to satisfy a uniform template. In particular, Writing or Validation must not be assigned to every author automatically. The contribution statement must reflect actual involvement rather than a predetermined distribution of roles.
The corresponding author is responsible for coordinating the preparation and submission of the contribution statement. All authors must have an opportunity to review the roles attributed to them and must approve the final statement before submission.
Where a contribution statement is incomplete, inconsistent, or appears incompatible with the work reported, ETFLIN may request clarification or a revised statement before proceeding with editorial evaluation or publication.
Assigning and Verifying Contributor Roles
CRediT roles should be discussed and agreed upon by the research team as early as practicable and reviewed as the work progresses. The final statement must reflect the contributions made to the version of the work being submitted for publication.
Assignments must be based on actual activities and evidence of contribution, not solely on academic title, employment position, institutional affiliation, funding status, seniority, or author order.
The corresponding author must coordinate the reporting process and ensure that all listed authors have reviewed and approved the contribution statement. Each author remains responsible for the accuracy of the information describing their own contributions and should raise any material disagreement before submission.
The editorial team may request clarification, supporting documentation, or confirmation from individual authors when necessary to verify the accuracy of a statement. Such requests may arise when the assigned roles are inconsistent with the manuscript, when a contribution is disputed, or when information submitted by different authors conflicts.
ETFLIN may require a corrected contribution statement if the original assignment does not adequately represent the work performed. Where a concern raises broader questions about authorship eligibility or research integrity, the matter may also be handled under the applicable editorial and publication ethics procedures.
Reporting and Publication of Contribution Statements
CRediT information must be supplied through the journal's submission workflow or another method specified by the editorial office. Authors must provide sufficient information to identify the contributions associated with each listed author.
Contribution statements should use the standardized CRediT role names and should identify the individuals associated with each role. Names or initials may be used according to the journal's production format, provided that the assignments are unambiguous.
A contribution statement are presented in Author Information section and made automatically based on the author input during submission and revision.
The contribution statement will be published alongside the final article. ETFLIN will also retain or transmit contribution information in the associated publication metadata where supported by its publishing systems and applicable metadata infrastructure.
Authors are responsible for ensuring that the final contribution statement is complete and consistent with the information approved by all authors. Any discrepancy identified before publication must be resolved before the final article is released.
Degree of Contribution and Author Order
CRediT identifies the types of contributions made to a scholarly output. It does not, by itself, establish the degree of contribution, determine author order, rank the importance of authors, or indicate the overall intellectual value of each person's work.
The fact that one author has several assigned roles does not necessarily mean that the author contributed more than another author with fewer roles. Similarly, the order in which roles appear in a contribution statement does not establish a hierarchy of contribution.
Where ETFLIN's submission system or applicable journal instructions permit or request additional information about the degree of contribution, such information must be presented accurately and consistently with the instructions provided. Such indicators are supplementary and do not replace the standardized CRediT role definitions.
Author order and corresponding authorship must be agreed upon separately by the authors and must comply with ETFLIN's Authorship Policy.
Contributors Who Are Not Listed as Authors
CRediT is designed to describe contributions to research outputs and is not limited in principle to determining authorship. However, ETFLIN's mandatory submission requirement applies to all listed authors, while additional reporting of non-author contributions depends on the nature of the contribution and the journal's publication workflow.
Individuals who provide technical assistance, administrative support, general supervision, funding, or other assistance without meeting all authorship criteria must not be added to the author list solely to recognize that assistance.
Where appropriate, such individuals should be acknowledged in the manuscript with a clear description of their contributions. Permission should be obtained before a person is named in the Acknowledgments section, in accordance with ETFLIN's Authorship Policy.
The description of a non-author contribution does not confer authorship or remove the responsibility of the listed authors for the integrity of the published work.
Group and Multicenter Research
For multicenter studies and research conducted by large collaborative teams, the authors must ensure that individual contributions are reported as accurately as practicable.
Where a research group or consortium is identified as an author, the manuscript must clearly indicate the individuals who satisfy the applicable authorship criteria and must provide contributor information consistent with the journal's submission requirements.
CRediT roles must not be attributed indiscriminately to every member of a research group merely because the group collectively participated in the study. The statement should distinguish the activities performed by specific individuals or teams when such distinctions can reasonably be established.
The authors should agree on contributor recognition, author order, group authorship, and responsibility for the work before submission. Additional requirements for group and multicenter authorship are described in ETFLIN's Authorship Policy.
Changes to Contributor Roles
Contributor roles may require revision when the work develops, when a manuscript undergoes substantive revision, or when an error in the original statement is identified.
Before publication, the corresponding author must notify the editorial office of any material change to the contribution statement. The revised statement must be reviewed and approved by all authors whose reported contributions are affected, and ETFLIN may request an explanation of the change.
Changes to contributor roles must not be used to conceal an authorship dispute, improperly include or exclude an author, or misrepresent the work performed. Where a proposed change also affects the author list, author order, or corresponding author, the applicable requirements in ETFLIN's Authorship Policy. must be followed.
After publication, requests to amend a contribution statement must be submitted formally with a clear explanation and any supporting information requested by the editorial team. Material changes are subject to editorial review. If approved, the published record will be updated through an appropriate formal correction in accordance with ETFLIN's Correction, Withdrawal, and Retraction Policy.
Published contribution statements must not be silently altered in a way that prevents readers from identifying or understanding a material change to the scholarly record.
Disputes and Inaccurate Contribution Statements
Authors are expected to resolve disagreements about contributor roles through discussion and agreement before submission whenever possible. Disputes may involve the omission of a contributor, the assignment of an inaccurate role, disagreement about who performed a particular activity, or the misrepresentation of an individual's contribution.
When a material disagreement is raised, ETFLIN may request written explanations and relevant documentation from the corresponding author and other authors concerned. The editorial team may ask the parties to review and correct the statement where an error is established.
If a dispute cannot be resolved through clarification, or if the circumstances suggest a broader authorship or research integrity concern, ETFLIN may refer the matter to the relevant institution or competent authority for investigation. Editorial processing or publication may be suspended while a material dispute remains unresolved.
The journal will assess the available evidence and take proportionate action under its applicable editorial procedures. The handling of an authorship dispute must remain consistent with ETFLIN's Authorship Policy and Publishing Ethics Policy.
If a published contribution statement is found to be materially inaccurate, ETFLIN may request a formal correction. Suspected fabrication of contribution information, deliberate misrepresentation, or related misconduct may also be investigated under the journal's publication ethics procedures.
Artificial Intelligence and Software-Assisted Contributions
Artificial intelligence systems, chatbots, and other AI-assisted technologies must not be listed as authors or entered as human contributors in a CRediT statement. They cannot assume authorship accountability or independently fulfill the journal's authorship requirements.
The use of an AI tool does not, by itself, establish a CRediT contribution. Human contributors should be credited for the work they actually performed, including substantive software development, analysis, validation, or writing where applicable.
Where AI-assisted technologies have materially contributed to the research process, data analysis, software development, or manuscript preparation, authors must provide the required disclosures in accordance with ETFLIN's Use of Artificial Intelligence Policy.
The CRediT statement must remain an accurate account of human contributions and must not be used to replace or obscure the required disclosure of AI-assisted activities.
Policy Administration and Review
ETFLIN is responsible for maintaining this policy, communicating its requirements to authors, and ensuring that contribution statements are handled consistently throughout submission and publication.
Editors may request clarification or correction of contributor information when necessary. The corresponding author coordinates the submission of accurate contribution statements, while all authors remain responsible for reviewing and approving the roles attributed to them.
This policy will be reviewed periodically to ensure continued alignment with the official CRediT taxonomy, relevant publication ethics standards, and ETFLIN's editorial procedures. Any substantive changes to the requirements or implementation of CRediT will be reflected in the published policy.
For additional guidance, authors should consult the official CRediT website, ETFLIN's Authorship Policy, and the relevant editorial policies linked above.
Questions regarding the interpretation or implementation of this policy may be directed to halo@etflin.com.