October 2026: Author or Acknowledgement?
You collected the images, analyzed the data, and now you’re getting ready to submit your manuscript. The core staff helped out with your experiments along the way.
Should the core staff who helped you be listed as an author, or should they be included in the acknowledgments?
The answer depends on the contribution.
Core Facility Acknowledgement:
You should ALWAYS list the core facility in the acknowledgement.
Core instruments are funded by different grants and the funding sources must be acknowledged when publishing data collected on that instrument. Statistics on core facility acknowledgements are collected by the cores and reported to funding agencies as evidence of instrument use and impact.
Core facility acknowledgements should include the facility RRID. Research Resource Identifiers (#RRID) are ID numbers assigned to help researchers cite key resources (core facilities, instruments, software projects, antibodies, model organisms and cell lines) in the scientific literature to improve transparency of research methods.
The SCOPE RRID is SCR_022721.
Core Staff Acknowledgment: When technical assistance is the main contribution.
Core facilities are built to provide researchers with access to specialized instruments, technologies, and technical expertise. An acknowledgment is appropriate if a staff member routine technical assistance such as:
- Instrument training
- Minor technical assistance when using an instrument
- Help transferring data or opening files
- Recommending analysis software or generalize analysis approaches
- Sample loading
- Following an established imaging protocol
- Reviewing manuscript methods
Authorship: When the contribution goes beyond routine service.
Sometimes, the role of a core scientist is much more than simply operating a instrument.
If a core staff member makes an intellectual or experimental contribution to the work, authorship may be appropriate. This could include:
- Helping design or develop the experiment.
- Developing or significantly modifying a method.
- Troubleshooting complex experimental challenges.
- Contributing specialized scientific expertise to experimental interpretation.
- Performing substantial data analysis or processing.
- Helping interpret data or draw scientific conclusions.
- Contributing to the writing or critical revision of the manuscript.
In these situations, the core scientist is contributing as a scientist—not simply providing access to an instrument.
Why does this matter?
Core facility staff are scientists.
Recognition of their contributions helps support their careers and demonstrate the scientific impact of the facility.
Publications and acknowledgments are critical for obtaining instrumentation grants and other funding to ensure that core facility equipment remains up to date and useful for your science.
Working on your manuscript?
When you are working on your manuscript, the SCOPE team is here to help.
We are happy to provide you with templates for acknowledgements that include any necessary funding sources.
SCOPE staff will review all light microscopy imaging and analysis methods to ensure all necessary information is included for reproducibility, regardless of authorship or acknowledgement.
At the SCOPE, our goal is to help design experiments, optimize imaging strategies, troubleshoot challenging samples, analyze data, and get the most meaningful information from advanced microscopy technologies. We want to make your imaging experiments go smoothly from planning all the way to publishing.
Sources:
Royal Microscopical Society. (2026). Publication policies & guidelines. https://www.rms.org.uk/resources/publication-policies-and-guidelines.html
Stark, C., Schober, M., & Wenzel, D. (2020). Imaging methods are vastly underreported in biomedical research. Nature Communications, 11, 3687. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17413-7