The ICME Journal of Laboratory Medicine is committed to transparent, accountable, and ethical authorship practices across its clinical pathology and laboratory medicine publications. Authorship recognizes substantial intellectual contributions and carries responsibility for the accuracy, authenticity, integrity, and appropriate reporting of published work.
This policy is based on the authorship criteria described in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations and is informed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices and the transparency principles reflected in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) criteria.
In accordance with the ICMJE Recommendations, every individual listed as an author of an ICME Journal of Laboratory Medicine article must satisfy all four of the following criteria:
Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the laboratory research; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of diagnostic data.
Drafting the manuscript or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content in laboratory science.
Final approval of the version to be published.
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work and to ensure that questions concerning accuracy or integrity are investigated and resolved.
ICME Journal of Laboratory Medicine does not permit authorship misrepresentation. Credible concerns may be investigated according to COPE guidance, resulting in rejection, retraction, or institutional notification:
Listing an individual who does not meet authorship criteria, often because of reputation or institutional position.
Omitting an individual who made a substantial scientific contribution and qualifies for authorship.
Adding an individual because of seniority, status, or routine lab supervision without a qualifying contribution.
Purchasing or commercially arranging authorship positions without legitimate qualifying research contributions.
Using authority, employment, or academic pressure to demand authorship without a qualifying contribution.
Generative AI tools cannot qualify as authors because they cannot approve the work or accept legal and ethical responsibility.
Requests to modify the author list after submission must come from the Corresponding Author with written confirmation from all existing and proposed authors. The journal may request additional institutional clarification where necessary.
Changes require written consent from all authors. Processing may be paused while the request is evaluated.
Post-publication changes are considered only with strong justification and documented through a formal correction notice.
ICME Journal of Laboratory Medicine encourages authors to provide authenticated ORCID iDs to prevent name ambiguity, improve metadata indexing, and connect publications with researchers' records.
Authors are encouraged to specify individual contributions using the CRediT Taxonomy (e.g., Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Writing, Supervision, Funding Acquisition).
AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Substantive use of generative AI must be disclosed in the Methods or Acknowledgments. Human authors retain full responsibility for all submitted content.
ICME Journal of Laboratory Medicine applies authorship procedures based on ICMJE Recommendations and COPE Core Practices. Allegations of authorship misrepresentation are assessed confidentially and fairly.