Publication principles in the EUnetHTA Project

This section lays down the principles on communications in the EUnetHTA project. The principles will be adjusted - when applicable - at the start of the EUnetHTA Joint Action (preliminary scheduled for the beginning of 2010).

Introduction

Communications to various audiences on the goals, the plans, and the results of the EUnetHTA project are critically important for success in establishing a sustainable network for HTA in Europe.

Active participation and initiative from partners in communicating the project to various target groups is invited and welcome. It is desirable that many publications concerning the project are produced in order to make all relevant stakeholders and decision makers aware of the project.

A subset of presentations and publications will be communicating results of original research or review of publications such as articles reporting research. Another subset will be dissemination and translational communications on EUnetHTA.

For coordination and documentation purposes each partner should inform the Network coordinator of any occasion when acting as a EUnetHTA member (e.g. when giving presentations, writing communications on EUnetHTA) and submit a copy – preferably with an English abstract - of any product aimed at publication to the coordinator. A title of the publication should always be translated into English and made available to the Secretariat. The Secretariat then informs WP2 Lead Partner about the upcoming communications and if necessary asks for assistance in making appropriate announcements e.g., on website.

The responsibility of declaring any possible conflict of interest lies with the partners where each partner should use common standards for the conflict of interest declaration available from the leading medical journals.

I. Formats

Presentations:

EUnetHTA format i.e framing colours and logo as available on the EUnetHTA Members webpage should always be used.

EUnetHTA Member own logo may be attached but it should be clear that it is a EUnetHTA project presentation.

II. Publications

Printed material

EUnetHTA logo should be clearly visible either on the front page or at the back, when suitable complemented with EUnetHTA Member own logo. In case of multiple parties (Work Packages , Associated Partners , Lead Partners) involved it is advisable to use to the EUnetHTA logo only.

Web-published material

The EUnetHTA logo should be put on the title page and the above principles be followed.

III. Publicity Requirements (as per Grant Agreement)

Unless the Commission requests otherwise, any communication or publication by any of the members should contain a reference to the funding received from the European Community.

Any communication or publication by any of the members, in any form or medium, shall indicate that the sole responsibility lies with the author and that the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

The standard text to be used: “EUnetHTA project is supported by a grant from the European Commission. The sole responsibility for the content of this article (publication, presentation, etc) lies with the authors and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.”

IV. Authorship

Authorship will typically be stated as follows: One or several names of individuals followed by “… for the European Network for Health Technology Assessment (EUnetHTA)”. In such cases and where appropriate a following disclaimer should be used: “The views expressed therein are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of EUnetHTA. EUnetHTA assumes no liability for the contents or use thereof.”

Any publications/products developed within and in connection with the EUnetHTA project should include the following statement: "The development of this report (article, publication - choose which is appropriate) was conducted as a part of the EUnetHTA project.”

Use the correct descriptions and members in the various groups. Check with EUnetHTA´s home page for up-to-date information

Always inform and ask, in advance, potential co-authors for approval. Use common authorship rules for inclusion. Factual involvement either intellectually or through actual hand- on work is necessary for co-authorship. The Vancouver Group’s Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals can be a guide (http://www.icmje.org)*.

For publications involving strategic or tactical reasoning or statements concerning the progress of the project the secretariat and the Executive Committee (Lead Partners of the Work Packages) must always be involved. Always check with relevant Lead Partner of relevant Work Packages if the publication deals with matters concerning their responsibility.

*) These are the key Vancouver Rules on Authorship, latest update Feb. 2006 (taken from http://www.icmje.org)

IV.A Authorship and Contributorship

II.A.1. Byline Authors

An “author” is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study, and biomedical authorship continues to have important academic, social, and financial implications. (1) In the past, readers were rarely provided with information about contributions to studies from those listed as authors and in acknowledgments. (2) Some journals now request and publish information about the contributions of each person named as having participated in a submitted study, at least for original research.

Editors are strongly encouraged to develop and implement a contributorship policy, as well as a policy on identifying who is responsible for the integrity of the work as a whole.

While contributorship and guarantorship policies obviously remove much of the ambiguity surrounding contributions, it leaves unresolved the question of the quantity and quality of contribution that qualify for authorship.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has recommended the following criteria for authorship; these criteria are still appropriate for those journals that distinguish authors from other contributors.

• Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3.

• When a large, multi-center group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript (3). These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship defined above and editors will ask these individuals to complete journal-specific author and conflict of interest disclosure forms.

When submitting a group author manuscript, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and should clearly identify all individual authors as well as the group name. Journals will generally list other members of the group in the acknowledgements. The National Library of Medicine indexes the group name and the names of individuals the group has identified as being directly responsible for the manuscript.

• Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship.

• All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.

• Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Some journals now also request that one or more authors, referred to as “guarantors,” be identified as the persons who take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article, and publish that information.

Increasingly, authorship of multi-center trials is attributed to a group. All members of the group who are named as authors should fully meet the above criteria for authorship.

The order of authorship on the byline should be a joint decision of the co-authors.

Authors should be prepared to explain the order in which authors are listed.

II.A.2. Contributors Listed in Acknowledgments

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgments section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Editors should ask authors to disclose whether they had writing assistance and to identify the entity that paid for this assistance. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged.

Groups of persons who have contributed materially to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be listed under a heading such as “clinical investigators” or “participating investigators,” and their function or contribution should be described—for example, “served as scientific advisors,” “critically reviewed the study proposal,” “collected data,” or “provided and cared for study patients.”

Because readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions, all persons must give written permission to be acknowledged.