Cunoașterea Științifică seeks to ensure the accurate and transparent attribution of authorship and contributions to published works. Authorship should reflect a genuine and significant intellectual contribution to the research and preparation of the work.

The journal follows the principles and good practices concerning authorship and contributorship promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Authorship

A person may be listed as an author when they have made a significant intellectual contribution to the work and accept responsibility for their contribution.

Contributions that may justify authorship include, depending on the nature of the research:

  • conception or design of the study;
  • formulation of research questions or hypotheses;
  • development of the methodology;
  • conduct of the research or investigation;
  • data collection;
  • analysis or interpretation of data and results;
  • development of models, methods, software, or tools relevant to the research;
  • drafting the manuscript;
  • substantial intellectual revision of the manuscript;
  • theoretical or conceptual contributions essential to the work.

Administrative participation, provision of funding, general institutional supervision, or exclusively linguistic correction of the text do not, by themselves, justify authorship.

Authors’ Responsibilities

All authors must:

  • have approved the version submitted to the journal;
  • approve the final version accepted for publication;
  • agree to the inclusion of their name in the list of authors;
  • accept responsibility for their own contribution;
  • cooperate with the Editorial Board if questions arise regarding the accuracy or integrity of the work;
  • disclose competing interests and relevant funding sources;
  • comply with the journal’s editorial, ethical, and copyright policies.

No person should be included in the list of authors without their consent.

Likewise, no person who legitimately meets the criteria for authorship should be intentionally excluded from the list of authors.

Corresponding Author

For works with multiple authors, a corresponding author must be designated.

The corresponding author serves as the primary contact between the authors and the journal and is responsible for:

  • submitting the manuscript;
  • ensuring the accuracy of author metadata;
  • confirming that all authors have approved the manuscript and its submission;
  • communicating with the Editorial Board throughout the editorial process;
  • communicating editorial requests and information to the other authors;
  • confirming the agreement of all authors with the final version;
  • providing declarations concerning competing interests, funding, and other requested information.

Being the corresponding author does not automatically imply a greater academic contribution than that of the other authors.

Order of Authors

The order of authors is determined by the authors themselves and should be agreed upon before manuscript submission.

The journal does not determine the order of authors and does not intervene in disputes concerning contribution priority except to the extent necessary for managing the editorial process.

The corresponding author must ensure that the order of authors displayed in the manuscript and submission metadata is the order approved by all authors.

Contributors Who Do Not Meet Authorship Criteria

Individuals who contributed to the work but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section or in a contributorship statement.

Such contributions may include, for example:

  • technical assistance;
  • administrative support;
  • assistance in collecting materials;
  • general consultation;
  • language editing or proofreading;
  • logistical support;
  • other contributions that do not constitute a sufficient intellectual contribution for authorship.

Where appropriate, authors should obtain the consent of individuals who are named in the acknowledgements.

Contributor Statements

For works with multiple authors, the journal encourages authors to specify the contribution of each author.

Contributions may be described, where appropriate, through activities such as:

  • conceptualization;
  • methodology;
  • investigation;
  • data collection;
  • formal analysis;
  • interpretation of results;
  • software development;
  • visualization;
  • writing of the original draft;
  • review and editing of the manuscript;
  • supervision;
  • project administration;
  • funding acquisition.

For complex works, authors may use the international CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) to describe individual contributions.

Changes to Authorship

Any request to:

  • add an author;
  • remove an author;
  • change the order of authors;
  • substantially modify declared responsibilities

after manuscript submission must be communicated to the Editorial Board and justified.

As a general rule, the change must be approved by all authors, including the person to be added or removed.

After final acceptance or publication, changes to authorship are accepted only in justified circumstances and may require additional documentation or an editorial notice.

Authorship Disputes

The journal is not in a position to determine who deserves authorship where there is a factual dispute between collaborators.

In such situations, the Editorial Board may:

  • request explanations and documentation;
  • temporarily suspend the editorial process;
  • ask the authors to resolve the dispute before the process continues;
  • recommend that the matter be reviewed by the relevant institutions.

In serious cases, the journal may follow procedures recommended by COPE.

Honorary, Fictitious, and Ghost Authorship

The journal does not accept:

  • honorary or guest authorship, where a person who has not contributed sufficiently is included as an author;
  • fictitious authorship, where a person who did not participate in the work is listed as an author;
  • ghost authorship, where a person who made a substantial contribution and should be recognized is omitted;
  • inclusion of a name for the purpose of increasing the prestige or likelihood of acceptance of a manuscript.

Identification of such a situation may result in a request to correct the list of authors, rejection of the manuscript, or, where the problem is discovered after publication, a correction or other appropriate editorial action.

Artificial Intelligence and Authorship

Artificial intelligence tools and systems, including generative artificial intelligence tools, cannot be listed as authors or co-authors.

An AI system cannot:

  • approve the final version of a manuscript;
  • accept responsibility for the content;
  • disclose competing interests;
  • hold or exercise authorship rights and obligations.

Human authors remain fully responsible for the content of the manuscript and must disclose substantial use of artificial intelligence in accordance with the Editorial Policy and Author Guidelines.

Research Data and Materials

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the data, analyses, and results presented.

Where the nature of the research allows and ethical or legal requirements do not impose restrictions, authors should retain relevant data and materials for a reasonable period after publication.

The Editorial Board may request clarification or additional information where necessary to assess an issue concerning research integrity or reproducibility.

Where relevant, authors must also provide a Data Availability Statement.

Competing Interests and Funding

Authors must disclose any financial, professional, institutional, academic, or personal competing interest that may be relevant to the interpretation of the work.

Funding sources and other significant forms of support for the research must also be disclosed.

The absence of competing interests should be stated explicitly when required during the submission process.

Where an editor or member of the journal’s structures is an author or co-author of a manuscript, this constitutes an editorial competing interest. That person must not participate in the initial assessment, reviewer selection, communication of the decision, or editorial decision concerning the manuscript. Handling of the submission is transferred to an independent editor. The same principle applies where other personal, professional, institutional, or financial relationships could affect the impartiality of the editorial process.

Third-Party Materials

Authors are responsible for obtaining any permissions required to use material for which they do not hold the necessary rights, including:

  • images;
  • photographs;
  • tables;
  • graphs;
  • illustrations;
  • substantial text excerpts;
  • datasets;
  • other protected materials.

Sources must be properly acknowledged, and any conditions or restrictions concerning reuse must be clearly stated.

Author Identification

Authors are encouraged to provide an ORCID iD where they have one.

ORCID helps distinguish authors unambiguously and connect publications with their academic identity.

For articles published through OJS, author information, institutional affiliations, and ORCID identifiers are managed within the publication metadata.

Application of this Policy

This policy applies to all manuscripts submitted to Cunoașterea Științifică and should be read together with:

Publishing Articles · Editorial Policy · Peer Review Process · Plagiarism and Originality Policy · Copyright

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of all information provided concerning authorship and contributions.