The manuscript is drafted and the author line is contested. Perhaps your partner expects their department head to appear. Perhaps a student who left the project is on your list and not theirs. Perhaps the order you assumed is not the order they assumed.
Handled early and directly, these are manageable. Handled by email over three weeks, they damage collaborations that took years to build.
Start by identifying which disagreement it is
Four distinct situations, requiring different responses:
Order. Which position carries what weight is field-specific, and if the two sides work in adjacent fields they may be applying different conventions without either being wrong.
Inclusion. Whether a particular contribution qualifies — a technician, someone who provided samples or access, a group head.
People who have left. A graduated student, a departed collaborator whose work is in the paper.
Institutional convention. Practices differ on whether unit heads or those who secured funding appear routinely.
The fourth is the one most likely to be misread as bad faith. If your partner proposes including someone whose contribution you cannot see, ask what the convention is at their institution before concluding anything.
Apply a stated standard
The widely used international criteria require substantial contribution to conception and design, data acquisition, or analysis and interpretation — and involvement in drafting or revising, approval of the final version, and accountability for the work.
Two consequences that settle most disputes:
Providing funding, materials, or access does not by itself qualify; those are acknowledged rather than credited as authorship.
Someone who made a substantial contribution cannot be dropped — including a student who has since left, and including someone with whom relations have deteriorated.
The useful move is to name the standard you are applying, in writing, and ask whether both sides accept it. Much of the disagreement is often about which standard applies rather than about the facts.
Run the conversation properly
Each person writes out their own contribution by stage. This alone resolves a surprising share of disputes, because each side sees what the other actually did.
Talk, do not email. A call — video if possible. Written exchanges on this subject escalate, and they produce a record both sides later regret.
Separate the disagreement from the deadline. Do not submit a paper whose author line is disputed. A journal discovering an authorship dispute after submission creates a far larger problem, and some will refuse to proceed until it is resolved.
Record the outcome and circulate it.
Note the asymmetry
This matters particularly in a collaboration between institutions of unequal resources.
If you are the better-resourced partner, the international partner, or the one holding the funding, your position in the conversation is not neutral. A proposal from you carries weight that the same proposal from them would not, and agreement offered under that asymmetry is not the same as agreement freely given.
Two practical implications: invite their view first and ask directly whether they see it differently; and treat a quick agreement to your proposal as a reason to check rather than as a settled matter.
The same applies with more force to doctoral students and junior staff on either side, for whom the person across the disagreement may control their future.
Bringing in a third party
If direct conversation does not resolve it, a neutral person helps — a colleague both sides respect, a research integrity office, or a senior figure with no line-management relationship to either party.
Avoid anyone who supervises one of the parties; their conclusion will be read as partial regardless of its merits.
If the paper is already submitted, inform the editor yourself rather than letting them learn of it through a complaint. Most journals have a process, and early disclosure is treated very differently from late discovery.
When to concede, and when not
Reasonable to concede: small differences in middle-author order; a position on one paper when the working relationship matters more; a decision made against you through a fair process after you were heard.
Not reasonable to concede: adding someone with no qualifying contribution, or dropping someone who has one.
Those two are not distributional disagreements — they concern whether the published record is accurate. Accepting either sets a precedent for every subsequent paper in the collaboration, and it exposes both institutions if it is later questioned.
If you find yourself under pressure on one of these, say plainly what standard you are applying and why, offer acknowledgement as the alternative where appropriate, and involve your research integrity office if the pressure continues.
Afterwards
Once resolved, write the convention down for the collaboration: how order is decided, what qualifies, who confirms the final list, and how a future disagreement will be handled.
One page, agreed while nobody is in dispute. It is the cheapest insurance available against the same conversation happening on the next paper — and having had one disagreement makes both sides unusually willing to agree it now.
What should I do before concluding a partner is acting in bad faith?
Ask what the authorship convention is at their institution — practices differ on whether unit heads or funders appear routinely.
Does providing funding or materials qualify for authorship?
Under the widely used criteria, no — those contributions are acknowledged rather than credited as authorship.
Should the paper be submitted while authorship is disputed?
No — a journal discovering a dispute after submission creates a far larger problem, and some will not proceed until it is resolved.
What should never be conceded?
Adding someone with no qualifying contribution, or dropping someone who has one — those concern whether the published record is accurate.
