Rules of Authorship - A review of current practice and inter‐departmental differences

Abstract

Today, most PhD theses are not presented in form of monographs, but are compilations of peer reviewed articles and, in parts, also conference papers. Being a PhD supervisor thus means also to assist PhD students in the process of writing academic papers. But should this automatically “translate” into supervisors becoming co-authors of the articles written by their PhD students? What is current practice? And are there inter-departmental differences? This question was answered by analyzing different departments at Lund University. The results show that there are no general rules, and that there are a lot of discrepancies – not only between but also within departments. With the increasing importance given to publications in the academic sphere, the authors suggest that the issue of authorship should generally be more explicitly discussed at all levels, that is: at University level, at department level, and between supervisors and PhD students.