Individual scientific credit in occupational medicine research: ethical and technical issues

The mechanism of competition requires the evaluation of scientific performance of research institutes, departments, research groups, and individuals through the assessment of scientific credit. The evaluation of credit in academic performance includes ethical and technical aspects, which are subjected to constructive criticism by the scientific community and require constant updating. There are a number of ethical criteria authors need to meet when submitting their scientific publications to journals. These are the declaration of potential conflicts of interest, avoidance of redundant publication of data or duplication of contributions, copying or manipulation of data, and communicating the funding source amongst others. There is also the important consideration of defining individual contributions by each author. Whereas the criteria for the definition of authorship and for the inclusion of researchers among the authors of the publication are now well defined, there is greater uncertainty on how to apportion credit to each author of a paper. In fact, usually co-authors do not equally contribute to a paper and their list establishes accountability as well credit to them. Indeed, there is a different perception of the scientific credit of the author in relation to their position in the paper’s title and, in general, the authors in the first or last position are regarded as deserving greatest scientific credit. Regarding the author position in the paper, it has been observed that only about 20% of occupational medicine researchers always appear as the first or last author and that about half (52%) of publications list an academic’s name as first or last, thus suggesting a possible if limited participation in the study. This finding is consistent with the observation that authorship of professors and chairperson, especially in key positions, has grown with time, suggesting an increasing hierarchical influence by the academics, whose names are included among the authors even in the absence of a significant contribution (the so-called phenomenon of gift authorship). although the criteria for attribution of authorship are well defined, it is more difficult to attribute relative credit for the contribution of individual authors, whose position in the publication’s title is associated with a different perception of scientific credit. However, in addition to the traditional indicators used to measure a paper’s quality and a journal’s prestige, the scientific community is providing new tools to allow a fair, transparent and objective assessment and apportionment of the relative contribution of each author, without forgetting that there is no substitute than reading the papers themselves in assessing the value of researchers.