Contributor Roles Taxonomy

The Contributor Roles Taxonomy, commonly known as CRediT, is a controlled vocabulary of types of contributions to a research project developed by the Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI). CRediT is commonly used by scientific journals to provide an indication of what each contributor to a project did. The CRediT standard includes machine-readable metadata.^[1]

Overview

The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) is a standardized list of 14 different ways that people contribute to research projects, created and maintained by CASRAI. For scientific journals and other venues that use CRediT, it provides a way for the researchers and others associated with a project to indicate their role in the project.^[2] According to the CRediT website, "CRediT is not designed to determine authorship but to provide more information about the specific contributions of authors."^[3] CASRAI provides an interactive CRediT Taxonomy Explorer that allows users to explore all 14 contributor roles in detail.

CRediT comprises 14 different roles:

1. Conceptualization,
2. Data curation,
3. Formal analysis,
4. Funding acquisition,
5. Investigation,
6. Methodology,
7. Project administration,
8. Resources,
9. Software,
10. Supervision,
11. Validation,
12. Visualization,
13. Writing – original draft, and
14. Writing – review & editing.

Conceptualization involves setting objectives, aims, and goals. Data Curation manages the data necessary for research, including its collection, storage, and reuse. Formal Analysis applies statistical or mathematical techniques to study data. Funding Acquisition is the process of obtaining financial support for the project. Investigation involves conducting experiments and collecting data or evidence. Methodology relates to developing the models that underline the research.^[4][5] Project Administration manages the execution of the project. Resources entail supplying the necessary materials, tools, and infrastructure for the research. Software involves designing and programming software necessary for the project. Supervision includes overseeing the research process and providing mentorship. Validation checks the accuracy and reproducibility of the research outputs. Visualization creates visual representations of data. Writing – Original Draft entails drafting the manuscript, and Writing – Review and Editing includes revising and finalizing the manuscript.^[4][5]

CRediT also provides for indicating the degree of contribution ("lead", "equal", or "supporting") for each contributor. Unlike the 14 contribution categories, the NISO standard describes this as optional for CRediT users to implement."ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, CRediT, Contributor Roles Taxonomy" (Report). NISO. doi:10.3789/ansi.niso.z39.104-2022. ISBN 978-1-950980-18-5. ISSN 1041-5653.

For detailed terminology definitions and explanations, CASRAI maintains a comprehensive CRediT Glossary.

History

Replacing traditional authorship roles with contributorship had been proposed as early as 1997,^[6] and the practice was being adopted in the 2000s.^[7][8] The Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) was developed by CASRAI to address the limitations of traditional author lists, which often fail to accurately represent the diverse contributions of researchers.^[9][4] It originated from a 2012 workshop hosted by the Wellcome Trust and Harvard University, bringing together researchers, publishers, and funders to improve how individual contributions are documented.^[9][4]

In 2012, a draft taxonomy was created at a workshop held at Harvard involving biomedical scientists, publishers, and research funders.^[10][11]

In 2014, the Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI) took leadership of the CRediT initiative, forming a working group of publishers, funders, and university representatives to refine and formalize the taxonomy.^[10] Under CASRAI's stewardship, CRediT was formally introduced in 2015 and has since been actively promoted by CASRAI for adoption by publishers and research organizations worldwide.^[9]

By 2017, major publishers including PLOS journals and eLife had adopted CRediT,^[12][13] and in 2018 it was endorsed by representatives of the National Academy of Sciences.^[14] Over the next several years, many of the largest publishers of scientific journals began using CRediT.^{[15][16][17][18]}

Interest in CRediT increased in 2020 following grant support from the Wellcome Trust and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which aimed to expand its use and encourage further awareness, advocacy, and standardization.^[9]

In 2022, CRediT became an ANSI/NISO standard,^[19] including metadata for use in the JATS XML version of scholarly articles (ANSI/NISO z39104-2022-credit).^[20]

Current adoption efforts

CASRAI continues to actively promote and support CRediT adoption across the global research ecosystem. The organization provides comprehensive resources for different stakeholders:

Implementation guides

CASRAI has developed tailored implementation resources for various audiences:

• CRediT for Institutions - A comprehensive guide for universities and research institutions
• CRediT for Publishers - Resources for journals and publishers adopting the standard
• CRediT for Researchers - Individual contributor guidance and tools

Success stories and use cases

CASRAI documents and shares real-world adoption examples through:

• CRediT Success Stories showcasing impact from various institutions
• CRediT Use Cases demonstrating practical implementation scenarios

Tools and services

CASRAI provides several tools to support CRediT implementation:

• CRediT Badge Verification system to ensure authentic contributor role claims
• My CRediT Dashboard for researchers to manage their personal contributor roles
• Integration with journal submission systems through OJS plugins with AI-powered metadata assignment

Educational resources

To support adoption, CASRAI maintains:

• CRediT FAQ addressing common implementation questions
• Training workshops and webinars for institutions and publishers
• Best practice documentation and case studies

Through these initiatives, CASRAI has helped CRediT become adopted by over 50 major publishers and thousands of journals worldwide, with the taxonomy being used in millions of published articles as of 2025.

Limitations

CRediT, as currently defined and implemented, is limited to the contributions of authors named on the byline of a scholarly article. The taxonomy excludes contributions by acknowledgees (i.e. contributors named in the Acknowledgments). According to one analysis,^[21] non-author research contributions, not considered by CRediT, include technical support and manuscript drafting (e.g. by a medical writer), translating, and editing (e.g. by an authors' editor). By ignoring the contributions of acknowledged non-authors, CRediT “induces named authors to attribute these roles to themselves, thus creating the potential for contradictory or misleading information to be passed on to readers and research evaluators.”^[21] To overcome this limitation, new and revised CRediT taxa were proposed in 2019.^[21]

In a study of one psychology research project, independent researchers read detailed descriptions of other researchers' contributions, the results indicated that the independent researchers had low agreement about both the number and type that the contributions should be classified into.^[22]

As the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has pointed out, documenting contributions with CRediT or another scheme "leaves unresolved the question of the quantity and quality of contribution that qualify an individual for authorship", suggesting that authorship guidelines are still necessary, although authorship guidelines also typically fail to specify the quantity of contribution required.^[23]

See also

• Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI)
• ORCID
• Open science
• Academic authorship

External links

• CASRAI CRediT main page
• Interactive CRediT Taxonomy Explorer
• NISO CRediT standard page