Authorship Policy

Authorship confers both credit and accountability. DEPLOY applies the ICMJE criteria.

1. Authorship Criteria

An author must meet all four criteria: substantial contribution to conception or design, or to data acquisition, analysis, or interpretation; drafting or critically revising the work for important intellectual content; approval of the final version; and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Contributors who do not meet all four should be listed in the Acknowledgements: funders, data or equipment providers, language editors, technicians, and manuscript readers.

2. Prohibited Practices

Guest or honorary authorship, gift authorship, ghost authorship, and the sale or purchase of authorship (including through paper mills). Such cases lead to rejection or retraction and notification of the authors' institutions.

3. Author Order and Corresponding Author

Author order is agreed by all authors before submission and normally reflects the size of contribution; the journal does not arbitrate order disputes. The corresponding author handles all communication, secures co-author approval, manages administrative requirements, and responds to post-publication enquiries.

4. CRediT Contribution Statement

Every manuscript must include an Author Contribution Statement using the CRediT taxonomy.

5. Changes to Authorship

Before acceptance: requests must come from the corresponding author with the reason and written confirmation from all authors, including anyone added or removed. After acceptance or publication: changes are not normally permitted and, if exceptionally approved by the Editor-in-Chief with the written agreement of all authors, are published as a public Corrigendum.