Q: Should the owner of the equipment be granted authorship?

Detailed Question -

A very expensive measuring equipment is required for my research subject, but my laboratory does not possess it. A private company lent it to me at no charge except transportation costs. When I published a paper which includes the results obtained by the measuring equipment, should the president of the company be included as one of the authors?

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

As per the ICMJE authorship guidelines, authorship should be granted to someone who meets all of the following 4 criteria:

  • Made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; 
  • Contributed to drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 
  • Given final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. 

As per these guidelines, the President of the company that lent you the equipment does not qualify to be an author. However, the same guidelines also have a provision for non-author contributors: "Contributors who meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged."

Thus, to answer your question, the president of the company should not be given co-authorship, but you should thank him/her for assistance in the acknowledgments section of your paper.

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