1. Purpose and Principles

MEV recognizes authorship as both credit for scholarly work and responsibility for its accuracy, integrity, and ethical conduct. Authorship must accurately reflect the individuals who made substantial intellectual contributions to the work and who are prepared to take public responsibility for it.

This policy is intended to:

• ensure that appropriate contributors receive authorship credit;

• prevent honorary, gift, coercive, purchased, fictitious, or ghost authorship;

• distinguish authors from non-author contributors;

• make individual contributions transparent;

• establish responsibilities for the corresponding author and all co-authors; and

• provide procedures for authorship changes and disputes.

The authors, rather than the journal, are primarily responsible for identifying who qualifies for authorship and determining the order of authors. MEV may nevertheless request supporting information, investigate suspected irregularities, or refer disputes to the relevant institutions.