School of Theology, Philosophy and Music, Dublin City University, All Hallows College, Senior House, Dublin, Ireland.
Faculty of Science, Institute for Science in Society, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9010, 6500 GL, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2020 Apr;26(2):597-617. doi: 10.1007/s11948-019-00106-2. Epub 2019 Apr 23.
Much has been said about the need for improving the current definitions of scientific authorship, but an aspect that is often overlooked is how to formulate and communicate these definitions to ensure that they are comprehensible and useful for researchers, notably researchers active in international research consortia. In light of a rapid increase in international collaborations within natural sciences, this article uses authorship of this branch of sciences as an example and provides suggestions to improve the comprehensibility of the definitions of authorship in natural sciences. It assesses whether the definition of authorship provided by the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity can deal with current issues and problems of scientific authorship. Notably, problems that are experienced in project groups with researchers coming from multiple countries. Using theories developed by Jürgen Habermas and Robert Merton, a normative framework is developed to articulate ethical authorship in natural sciences. Accordingly, enriching the current definition of authorship with normative elements and using discipline-specific metaphors to communicate them are introduced as possible ways of improving the comprehensibility of the definition of authorship in international environments. Finally, this article provides a proposal to be considered in the future revisions of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.
关于改进当前科学作者身份定义的必要性，已经有很多讨论，但往往被忽视的一个方面是如何制定和传达这些定义，以确保它们对于研究人员，尤其是活跃于国际研究联盟的研究人员来说是可理解和有用的。鉴于自然科学领域的国际合作迅速增加，本文以该学科的作者身份为例，提出了一些建议，以提高自然科学领域作者身份定义的可理解性。它评估了《欧洲研究诚信行为准则》提供的作者身份定义是否能够应对当前科学作者身份的问题和挑战。特别是在由来自多个国家的研究人员组成的项目组中所遇到的问题。本文利用尤尔根·哈贝马斯和罗伯特·默顿的理论，构建了一个规范性框架，阐述了自然科学中的伦理作者身份。因此，引入了用规范性元素丰富当前作者身份定义，并使用特定学科的隐喻来传达这些元素的方法，作为在国际环境中提高作者身份定义可理解性的可能途径。最后，本文提供了一个在未来修订《欧洲研究诚信行为准则》时可以考虑的建议。
