New study on authorship practices: 6 in 10 PhD students report Vancouver rule violations
Authorship is sometimes offered as a strategic gesture, courtesy or favour.
Trust in science depends on rigorous adherence to good research practices – including authorship allocation. But how often are the Vancouver rules sidestepped? New research explores German PhD students' experiences.
Niklas Juth is professor of clinical medical ethics.
A recent study finds that German medical dissertations show widespread non-compliance with authorship rules. A common violation is listing senior researchers who did not contribute as co-authors. The study was published in Research Integrity and Peer Review and builds on previous studies conducted in Scandinavian countries by Niklas Juth, professor of clinical medical ethics at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics at Uppsala University, and colleagues. The results are similar.
PhD students themselves agree the Vancouver rules are both reasonable and important, and that not abiding by them not only damages the established system of academic merit but risks undermining trust in published research. But 6 in 10 still report authorship violations in their own dissertations. And a gender gap emerges; female PhD students are provided less information about authorship rules compared to their male peers.
“When research misconduct is discussed, the focus is often on fabricated data and high-profile scandals. But the most common form on misconduct is far more mundane: who gets their name on a scientific publication,” co-autors Niklas Juth and Nils Hansson write in a recent debate article in Svenska Dagbladet (Vem skrev egentligen forskningsartikeln?, 23 May 2026)
They call for changing the system: First, all PhD students need to be educated on research ethics and authorship. Second, clearer accountability is required, particularly in the relationship between supervisors and PhD students. Third, transparency must increase around who actually did what in a study or publication, regardless of discipline or number of authors.
“A name on a scientific article should not be a courtesy, a favour, or a strategic gesture. If we fail to change that, we will keep teaching new generations of researchers to cheat,” Niklas Juth and Nils Hansson conclude.
By Anna Holm Bodin
Klempp, L., Tanriverdi, N.Z., Loerbroks, A. et al. Who deserves credit, who receives credit? A cross-sectional survey on the handling of co-authorship in medical dissertations in Germany. Res Integr Peer Rev 11, 34 (2026). DOI: 10.1186/s41073-026-00219-w