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Ethics & Governance
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Institutional Affiliation Policy

1. Purpose

1.1 This policy sets out the agreed form for recording institutional affiliation on all research outputs, including publications and data.

1.2 Standardising institutional affiliation provides a number of benefits for both individual authors and the University. These include:

  1. Enhancing the visibility of University research through bibliographic databases such as Web of Science and Scopus, potentially increasing citation rates.
  2. Increasing the esteem and reputation of individual researchers, research groups and the University amongst the research community at both national and international level.
  3. Ensuring individual researchers, research groups and the University receive appropriate academic recognition for the quality and breadth of research.
  4. More accurate measuring and recording of bibliometric measures associated with research outputs (such as citation counts and article impact factors), enabling more accurate reporting of research outputs for the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

2. Scope

2.1 This policy applies to:

  1. All academic research staff and students
  2. Staff on teaching-only contracts who produce publications as part of their work (e.g. Teaching Fellows).
  3. Any research arising from funding or research grants provided by the University, including Seedcorn funding.
  4. Any research arising from the use of University facilities.
  5. All Honorary, Visitors or Emeritus members of staff.
  6. All publications where a Durham researcher is an author, even where that is not the principal or corresponding author.

2.2 Where an author holds a joint affiliation with another institution or organisation, both affiliations may be cited, but the University affiliation must be included.

2.3 The policy applies to all research outputs, including articles, conference proceedings, monographs, book chapters and other publications, where one or more authors falls within the scope of the policy, at the point a manuscript or equivalent is originally submitted or published.

3. University Policy

3.1 The institutional affiliation Durham University must be cited.

3.2 Acronyms or abbreviations should not be used for either the University affiliation or the name of the School, Department, Research Institute, Research Centre or Research Group unless accompanied by the full non-abbreviated name.

3.3 Where permitted by the publication’s house style, Durham University should appear as the first element in institutional affiliation and should normally be no later than the second element. Other elements (e.g. Department or Research Group) may be listed if there is sufficient space, but these should never appear at the expense of including Durham University.

3.4 If the publication’s house style does not permit the format outlined in 3.3 above, Durham University should appear as prominently and as close to the start of the affiliation entry as possible.

3.5 Examples of the correct format for institutional affiliations can be found in appendix 1.

4. Responsibilities

4.1 It is the responsibility of individual authors to ensure that their affiliation to Durham University is correctly recorded. This includes checking the proofs of any publications received.

4.2 Where a paper is co-authored with an academic from another institution, it is the responsibility of the individual Durham author to ensure that the corresponding author is informed of the correct format to be used for Durham researchers.

4.3 It will be the responsibility of the Departmental Directors of Research to work with the individual author to take appropriate steps to ensure that all future publications contain the correct attribution.

5. Dissemination of Policy

5.1 This policy will be disseminated via the Research & Innovation Services website, Dialogue and Faculty Research Committees.

6. Review

6.1 This policy will be reviewed by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) in conjunction with the appropriate University research committee every 2 years.

7. Version Control

Approval date: 11 October 2022

Approved by: Senate

Contact for further information: research.policy@durham.ac.uk

 

Appendix 1: Examples of the correct use of institutional affiliation

1.

Preferred: [Researcher Name], Durham University, Department of Archaeology, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, United Kingdom.

Alternative: [Researcher Name] Department of Archaeology, Durham University, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, United Kingdom.

2.

Preferred: [Researcher Name], Durham University, Department of French, School of Modern Languages & Cultures, Elvet Riverside, New Elvet, Durham, DH1 3JT.

Alternative: [Researcher Name] School of Modern Languages & Cultures, Durham University, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, United Kingdom.

3.

Preferred: [Researcher Name], Durham University, Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, Department of Physics, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LE.

Alternative: [Researcher Name] Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology and Department of Physics, Durham University, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LE.

Or, where a publisher format allows, include two separate affiliations:

Alternative: [Researcher Name] Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, Durham University, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LE.
And
[Researcher Name] Department of Physics, Durham University, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LE

4.

Preferred: [Researcher Name] is a [Position] at Durham University in the Department of Archaeology.

Alternative: [Researcher Name] is a [Position] in the Department of Archaeology at Durham University.