This article examines acknowledgment practices and their role in documenting collaboration in research, suggesting improvements to representations of contributions.
In scientific writing, it is important to recognize research contributions that do not qualify for authorship. However, acknowledgment sections are often short and lack a consistent structure. This article examines how acknowledgment statements document these contributions and reviews bibliometric evidence indicating that acknowledgments reveal types of collaboration not reflected in author lists. Examples from mental health research show how field teams and people with lived experience are recognized. Paying more attention to acknowledgment practices, along with established authorship and contributorship frameworks, could help better represent the many ways people contribute to research.
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Rajshekhar Bipeta (2026) studied this question.
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