AGU Publications Updates Authorship Policy to Foster Greater Equity and Transparency in Global Research Collaborations

AGU Publications encourages research collaborations between regions, countries, and communities. When well‐resourced researchers complete research or field work in low‐resourced settings while excluding local communities or researchers from the process, this can be referred to as parachute science or helicopter research. To help address concerns of parachute science and to promote greater equity and transparency in global research collaborations, AGU Publications has updated its authorship policy across its scholarly journals. The implementation of this policy follows a successful 18‐month pilot at JGR: Biogeosciences. For research completed in low‐resourced regions, authors are encouraged to include a disclosure statement pertaining to the ethical and scientific considerations of their research collaborations.

authored by researchers from low-resourced regions, as defined by Research4Life, an organization that provides access to peer-reviewed journal content to institutions from low-and middle-income countries.
The picture among all AGU journals is similar: in 2012, 45% of submissions included international author teams, decreasing to 40% in 2023.Submissions with at least one Research4Life author across all AGU journals were 2% of submissions in 2012 and increased in 2023 to 2.8% of submissions (Jewett & Wooden, 2024).Furthermore, authorship in AGU publications is not always representative of the region where the study is done.For example, about a quarter of published articles with earth science research topics done in Africa included African authors, as examined in Geophysical Research Letters, Tectonics, and JGR: Solid Earth (North et al., 2020).Similarly, only 30% of abstracts submitted to JGR: Biogeosciences, with mention of a Research4Life country, include an author from that country (Jewett & Wooden, 2024).While these numbers do not necessarily prove that parachute science has occurred in any given manuscript, they point to an overdue need to improve equity and transparency in global research collaborations.To meet this need, there are actions that scientific publishers, along with other participants of the research ecosystem (researchers, institutions, funders, etc.), can take.

Global Research Collaboration: A Pilot at JGR: Biogeosciences
The Editorial Board of JGR: Biogeosciences, together with the AGU Publications' Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Sub-committee, made a commitment to accelerate efforts to advance transparency, equity, and inclusion to publishing in the geosciences.As part of this commitment, the journal piloted an initiative to push authors toward more transparent, ethical, and equitable global research collaborations (Xenopoulos et al., 2023).The pilot followed the principles of, and encouraged authors to adhere to, the recommendations outlined in the TRUST CODE-A Global Code of Conduct for Equitable Research Partnerships (TRUST, 2018) during the planning, execution, and reporting stages of their research.Through the pilot, the Editorial Board identified manuscripts that had elements of international research, especially for field work performed in lowresourced regions.For these selected manuscripts, the Journal requested that authors provide greater transparency in authorship contributions, as well as a "Global Research Collaboration" disclosure statement that clarified the following ethical and scientific considerations: whether local researchers were involved with the study, the relevance of the research to the local context, proper acknowledgment of local and regional research, as well as disclosure of permits, authorizations, permissions and/or any formal agreements with local communities or other authorities, as applicable.
Through the pilot we encountered diverse case studies that were conducted in low-resourced regions of the world that spanned the range of field research topics that are published in JGR: Biogeosciences.These included oceanographic expeditions aboard large vessels within the waters of under-resourced countries, and field studies that analyzed biogeochemical samples in soils, rivers, lakes, glaciers, wetlands, sediments, aquifers, mountains, and forests.Some case studies included research modeled from field data collected directly by local researchers, but not yet in publicly open data sets or derived from observatories maintained by local researchers in lowresourced settings.In all cases, authors were supportive of including global research collaboration statements; and in some cases, our pilot led to the addition of co-authors, or better acknowledgement of local research support, data access, permits, restrictions, and outreach activities.

Moving Forward: AGU Publications Inclusion in Global Research Policy
Scholarly authorship is a valuable career currency, but researchers from low-resourced settings face higher hurdles and greater inequities at various stages of the publication process.Following the success of the Global Research Collaboration pilot in JGR: Biogeosciences, AGU Publications has updated its authorship policy to include the Inclusion in Global Research policy.The policy, as approved by the AGU Council in December 2023, will be implemented in AGU's journals starting in May 2024.If applicable, researchers submitting to AGU are encouraged to: • Include their local collaborators as co-authors when they meet the AGU Publications authorship criteria.
Those who do not meet the criteria should be recognized appropriately in the Acknowledgment section (i.e., using the collaborators' full names and affiliations wherever possible).

AGU Advances
10.1029/2024AV001298 • If applicable, include an "Inclusion in Global Research" statement as a standalone section after Conclusions that addresses ethical and scientific considerations applicable to the study.This can include disclosure of permits, authorizations, permissions and/or any formal agreements with local communities or other authorities, additional acknowledgments of local help received, and/or description of end-users of the research.This statement will be shared with reviewers and published with the paper.Compliance with the policy will be encouraged for authors, and enforcement is at the discretion of the editor, acknowledging the various entry points within our author, reviewer, and editor communities.We recognize that international research collaborations are nuanced because of the complexity and diversity of circumstances under which research is conducted.We see this policy update as an important step in raising awareness of concerns in global research collaborations, and one of many steps toward an equitable research creation and publication ecosystem.
• Consider the recommendations from The TRUST CODE-A Global Code of Conduct for Equitable Research Partnerships when conducting and reporting their research.If this information is not already provided, AGU's journal editors may return a submitted manuscript to encourage authors to engage with this policy, particularly if the research was conducted in low-resourced locations or communities outside of the authors' own country or community and relied on local researchers, collaborators, resources, field data, or samples collected there.Authors are also encouraged to complete CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) to provide more transparency into each author's contribution to the submitted work.