Co-authorship question

[rochish]

Greetings!

Someone from the field has invited me to be a coauthor on a manuscript that is under very advanced review at a top journal. The offer is tempting, but the problem is that I am one of the reviewers on the manuscript.

Has anyone encountered this issue before? Is it kosher to ask the editor for permission to change roles (from reviewer to coauthor)?

Of course, I don't  want to ruffle any feathers and I'm fine with foregoing the offer. It's just that I thought of checking if there is a permissible way of joining the project.

Thank you in advance for any insights.

[mamselle]

The slightly suspicious part of me wonders if they've somehow found out you're a reviewer and are trying to co-opt you to subvert the review.

But that's probably not really likely, maybe even not possible...although one never knows.

M.

[darkstarrynight]

I am a journal editor, and recently an author who received a R&R decision asked two members of our editorial board to join the author team on the revision. One happened to be a reviewer for this particular manuscript. It is through our training of our reviewers that we ask them to commit to their role once they accept a manuscript to review. The reviewer contacted us about the situation, and we asked the initial author to withdraw the manuscript from consideration in our journal so they can have the reviewer and other board member on the author team. This allowed us to rethink our training for our editorial board because we have no idea if the author and reviewer discussed the reviewer's role or not. I am not sure if the reviewer told the author that they were the reviewer or if they just happened to be asked to join and did not reveal that. There were too many unknowns to allow them to proceed in our journal. I also was concerned that another editorial board member (i.e., potential reviewer) was asked to join the author team after the initial decision. The main reason is that both of the reviewers the author chose are colleagues in my department at my institution, which I found suspicious. Maybe they thought these are the best people to help them get published in this journal, but alas, they withdrew the piece, and now we have a new addition to the training for our review board later this year.

[rochish]

Thank you very much for the insightful responses.

mamselle: I don't think the authors know that I am a reviewer. If they were to ask someone in the field, I would be one of the top 2 or 3 persons most qualified to help them. Also, I have casually met one of the authors at conferences a couple of times and chatted with them (although that was a few years ago). That probably explains why they contacted me.

darkstarrynight: I didn't realize this could be a possible outcome.  I would really hate it if the editor asks them to withdraw the manuscript because they invited me. I would rather not join them and let them find someone else to help them, than forego the chance at this top journal.

Any additional insights would be highly appreciated.

[Ruralguy]

My advice is to decline very very politely due to previous commitments. Leave it at that, because anything else subverts the process.

[rochish]

Thank you, ruralguy. That does appear to be the best course of action.

[Hibush]

I also recommend declining. If the manuscript is already in review, it is too late to legitimatly add an author. Look at what is expected to be considered an author in this journal. Usually that involves conceiving of the problem or providing at least one on the critical answers developed in the paper. Those things happen long before the paper is submitted.

[Puget]

I also recommend declining. If the manuscript is already in review, it is too late to legitimatly add an author. Look at what is expected to be considered an author in this journal. Usually that involves conceiving of the problem or providing at least one on the critical answers developed in the paper. Those things happen long before the paper is submitted.

That's not necessarily true if this is an R&R and the reviewers have asked for, say, new analyses that the authors lack the expertise to do. Or in some fields where multiple experiments in a paper are the norm, and are faster to run than in my (human subjects) world, I imagine a reviewer might even ask for an additional experiment that might require expertise the original team lacks.

So I don't think the issue is adding an author necessarily, the issue is that the proposed new author is already a reviewer. That is obviously a conflict of interest, and I'd agree with others who said you should politely decline. I think you should also inform the editor of what has happened-- you may be asked to withdraw as a reviewer at this point to avoid any hint of a conflict of interest.

On the plus side, it shows you were clearly the right reviewer for this paper, and there is nothing to stop you from collaborating with them in the future.

[rochish]

Thank you very much, everyone, for the valuable input. I really appreciate it.

I have declined the invitation.