Elucidating authorship issues as an element of research quality at Thailand’s National Science and Technology Development Agency

Authorship in a scientific publication is an indicator of significant intellectual contribution in scientific work. Regardless of the discipline, it is important for research-related personnel to receive credit and take responsibility for their publications. There are currently several systems of listing authorship that arise from many factors such as research complexity, pressure to obtain funding, hierarchical structure, and promotion. Some of these may unfortunately lead to authorship abuse. Raising awareness and understanding of authorship guidelines can help prevent abuses and disputes. National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) is a national research agency of Thailand with about 2 000 research staff members. The research emphasis of the agency is mainly technology development for application in broad areas, ranging from engineering to medicine, including forensic science. We conducted a survey to identify the level of awareness of NSTDA research staff and their authorship practices. A questionnaire was designed based on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines and used to survey 15% of randomly selected NSTDA research staff. Nearly 90% of them responded to the interview. Among the respondents, 60% were not sure about authorship criteria. When presented with the ICMJE criteria, more than 90% agreed with the criteria except for the third one, approval of the final manuscript before submission, 33% of respondents thought that authors are only responsible for their particular contribution. However, nearly 80% agreed that every author is responsible for the integrity of the whole manuscript. These results offered an important foundation for forming a strategy to raise awareness about authorship in NSTDA. Following survey analysis, we organized several seminars and developed learning materials and an authorship guideline to increase the level of awareness of authorship for researchers.