# Agree on authorship and contributions before a collaboration

Drafts a fair authorship and contribution agreement using recognized criteria, to prevent disputes on collaborative papers.

- Topic: Projects & Operations
- Framework: Few-Shot
- Level: Standard
- Tags: Research, Write, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/agree-on-authorship-and-contributions-before-a-collaboration

## Prompt

```text
Help me set up an authorship and contribution agreement for a collaborative research project.

**Project and planned outputs:** [e.g. "2 papers and a dataset"]
**Collaborators and expected roles:** [NAMES or roles, career stage, institutions]
**Field norms:** [e.g. "first and last author matter", "alphabetical order", "large consortium"]
**Journal or institutional policy:** [e.g. "ICMJE criteria", or "unknown"]
**Known sensitivities:** [e.g. "a student and a postdoc both want first author", "data provider expects authorship"]

Draft:
1. The authorship criteria we will use (e.g. ICMJE or field equivalent), explained in plain terms, and who qualifies for acknowledgment instead.
2. A contributions table using the CRediT taxonomy (conceptualization, methodology, software, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing - original draft, review and editing, supervision, funding acquisition, etc.) with each person's expected role and level.
3. Proposed author order for each output, with the reasoning.
4. Rules for change: what happens if contributions shift, someone leaves, or new people join, and when we revisit (e.g. at each draft milestone).
5. A dispute process, including who to involve (e.g. research integrity office).

Return the agreement as a 1-2 page document plus a short, friendly email to propose it to collaborators. Note that institutional policies take precedence and should be checked.
```

## What to fill in

- e.g. "2 papers and a dataset"
- NAMES or roles, career stage, institutions
- e.g. "ICMJE criteria", or "unknown"

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.