As it has been noted in one of the earlier posts, some very important research integrity issues fall within the category of ‘grey zone areas’ or “questionable research practices” that are not usually penalized in contrast to the practices involving fabrication or falsification of study results. These “questionable practices” are the most complex ones and they require a further analysison what responsible conduct of research actually is and how the “grey zone areas” should be reflected in normative guidelines.

So-called “honorary” or “undeserved” authorship is one of these complex integrity issues where legal and ethical considerations are closely intertwined. Its socio-cultural complexity is reflected in the metaphorical vocabulary used to distinguish between different contexts and subtypes of this phenomenon. The terms, such as “gift”, “guest” or “coercive” authorship have been used to describe different features and contexts where honorary authorship emerge.

Its importance stems from the fact that authorship has become the principal means of recognizing academic achievement. The list of publications affects professional carriers of academic staff as well as distribution of research grants. At the same time, non-compliance with the requirements of responsible authorship is a global phenomenon affecting both the developed countries as well as the countries transitioning to transparent and democratic governance. For example, a meta-analysis of studies dealing with authorship issues performed by Marušićet al.in 2011revealed that misuse of authorship was more prevalent outside the US and UK. However, even in these countries 23%of authors reported authorship problems as compared to other parts of the world, from France to India, where non-compliance with the authorship requirements was as high as 55%.

Although one might think that there is nothing too wrong with adding your colleague’s name to the list of authors, several highly detrimental consequences should be considered. First, honorary authorship may decrease public trust in science. Second, when a scientist is named as an author, s/he does not only get its benefits but also must be accountable for the published findings, which are not actually a product of his or her work.Still another consequence of honorary authorship is that the contribution of the true authors is diminishedand unfair competitive advancement created between individual scientists or between the groups of scientists due to emerging of “publication cartels” as they have been called by the Hungarian bioethicist J. Kovacs.

What should be done to cope with this widespread phenomenon? It would be very difficult to propose one simple solution to reduce or eliminate honorary authorship. To achieve this task a systematic effort of funders, publishers, scientific institutions and others involved in the scientific process is needed. However, training of students and young researchers in honest authorship practices can be seen as a priority in this respect. Particularly because acording to recent studies, authorship violations may be less likely to occur due to training in publishing ethics. This is exactly the point where relevance of INTEGRITY project can be clearly seen due to its efforts to develop research integrity training programs, which among other issues will also target the “grey zone” of responsible authorship.