I’ve been thinking a lot about authorship lately. With 17 students supervised and several papers from those theses now under review, the question keeps coming up: when does a student earn first authorship, and when should I take it?

The answer matters more than academic politics. It shapes how students see their contribution, their confidence, and their career trajectory.

Here’s my current framework (still evolving):

Students should be first author when:

They generated the core research question or novel approach They did the majority of the experimental work, even if I guided the design They wrote the first draft, even if I heavily edited it The work represents their intellectual contribution, not just executing my ideas Examples from my group:

Ward Ceyssens (cross-subject ECoG decoding): First author. He identified the research gap, designed the experiments, ran the analyses. My role was guidance and connecting it to broader BCI literature. Dries Cornelissen (BTTR for arrhythmia detection): First author. He adapted the BTTR framework to a new domain in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Dongho Chun (clustering for atrial fibrillation): First author. The clustering approach and comparative analysis were his ideas. I take first author when:

I developed the core method and the student applied it The work is a direct extension of my own research agenda Multiple students contributed pieces, and I integrated them The student contributed excellent execution but not conceptual innovation I’m senior author when:

I provided the infrastructure, supervision, and intellectual framework The student led the work but I’m responsible for the research direction It’s my lab, my grants, my responsibility if something’s wrong The gray areas:

The hardest cases are collaborative development. When a student and I spend hours whiteboarding together, who “owns” the ideas? When I suggest a direction but they make it work—whose contribution is primary?

My current approach: I lean toward giving students first authorship in ambiguous cases.

Why? Because:

They need the credential more than I do It builds confidence and ownership Early-career recognition matters enormously If I’m unsure, that probably means they did enough to earn it But here’s what I’m still struggling with:

Sometimes students want me to take first author because they don’t feel confident in the work, or they know their draft needs heavy revision. How do I balance giving them credit with being honest about contribution levels?

And when is it patronizing to give first authorship to work that was really mostly mine, just because they’re a student?

What I’ve learned from my own PhD:

My PhD advisor, Marc Van Hulle, consistently gave me first authorship on papers where I did the work, even though he contributed enormous intellectual guidance. That trust was transformative. It made me feel like a real researcher, not just a trainee.

I try to pay that forward.

But I also remember papers where I was second or third author, and that felt fair because others had done the heavy lifting. Good authorship decisions build trust. Bad ones create resentment.

The practical question:

Several of my students’ theses are being prepared for submission right now. In each case, I’m asking:

Whose idea was this fundamentally? Who did the majority of the work? Who wrote it? Will the authorship order accurately reflect the intellectual contribution? And sometimes, I’m asking them directly: “What do you think is fair?”

To established researchers: How do you navigate this? What frameworks do you use?

To students: Have you experienced authorship decisions that felt fair or unfair? What mattered most?

I’m still figuring this out, and I suspect every research group handles it differently. But one thing I’m certain of: these decisions shape careers, and we should make them thoughtfully.

Current papers under review with student first authors: Ward Ceyssens (cross-subject BCI), Dries Cornelissen (arrhythmia prediction), Dongho Chun (AF clustering), Meseret Assefa Kerga (cirrhosis survival). Proud of all of them.

#AcademicEthics #Mentorship #ResearchIntegrity #PhDLife #StudentSupervision