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Academy · Research Publication · Declaration & Disclosure Wording
Declaration and Disclosure Wording Consistent with ICMJE and Major Publisher Requirements
Most manuscripts require four groups of declarations: authorship, funding and conflicts of interest, data availability and, more recently, artificial intelligence (AI) assistance. For each, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) have specified what editors should expect.
Four groups of declarations appear in the final pages of almost every manuscript: authorship and contributorship, conflicts of interest and funding, data availability and, under the current guidance of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), AI-assistance disclosure. Each has a wording pattern that meets what ICMJE and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) ask editors to look for.
Learning objectives
- What ICMJE’s four authorship criteria require the contributorship statement to state.
- What a funding statement needs to separate (support for the work versus support for an individual's time).
- What ICMJE's data-sharing proposal expects a data availability statement to specify.
- What ICMJE and COPE both currently require for AI-assistance disclosure.
Common misconceptions
- “"The authors declare no conflicts of interest" is a sufficient funding statement.” ICMJE expects the published article to state the authors’ relevant relationships and activities, the funding sources, the specific role of each funder (or an explicit statement that the funder had no role), and whether the authors had access to the underlying study data; a bare conflicts-of-interest statement does not address the funding-role or data-access elements.
- “AI-assistance disclosure is optional if the tool was only used for light copyediting.” Current ICMJE guidance states that the use of AI-assisted technologies must be disclosed at submission and in the relevant section of the manuscript, and that non-disclosure may be treated as misconduct; the requirement contains no de minimis exception based on the extent of use.
Authorship and contributorship
ICMJE's four authorship criteria — substantial contribution, drafting or critical revision, final approval, and accountability — should be reflected directly in the statement1.
Author Contributions: [Author A] contributed to study conception and design and data acquisition; [Author B] contributed to data analysis and interpretation; [Author A] and [Author B] drafted and critically revised the manuscript; all authors approved the final version and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work. Acknowledgments: [Name] provided [specific contribution, e.g. statistical review / editorial assistance] but did not meet full authorship criteria and is acknowledged with permission.
Funding and conflicts of interest
ICMJE expects the funder's role, or its explicit absence, to be stated — and support for the work separated from support for an individual's time1.
Funding: This study was funded by [Funder A] (grant number ___). [Funder A] had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or the decision to submit for publication. [Author X]'s time on this work was supported by [Funder B]. Conflicts of Interest: [Author names] have no conflicts of interest to declare. / [Author Y] has received [consulting fees / honoraria / research support] from [entity], unrelated to this work.
Data availability
ICMJE's data-sharing expectations ask a statement to specify what will be shared, when, and how access is governed2.
Data Availability: De-identified individual participant data underlying the results reported in this article will be made available [immediately upon publication / no later than 6 months after publication] to researchers who provide a methodologically sound proposal, via [repository/mechanism name], subject to a data use agreement. / The data supporting this study's findings are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request, given [any specific restriction and its reason].
AI-assistance disclosure
Required whenever an AI-assisted tool was used, per ICMJE's current guidance and COPE's position statement3.
AI-Assisted Technology Disclosure: [Tool name/version] was used for [specific purpose, e.g. language editing of a draft section / literature search assistance], under the direction and review of the named authors. The tool is not listed as an author; the authors have reviewed and take full responsibility for all content, including any AI-assisted portions, and confirm no content was presented as directly quoted from a primary source generated by the tool.
Key points
Key points
Each declaration has a specific element that ICMJE or COPE requires to be stated (the funder’s role or its absence, data access terms, and AI-tool use with the authors’ accountability for it), and a generic one-line boilerplate version usually omits precisely that element.
Practical application
Practical application
- The funder’s role should be stated explicitly, even when the funder had no role. "The funder had no role in..." is itself the required disclosure, not an optional addition.
- Project funding should be distinguished from an individual’s salary support in the funding statement. Each should be stated distinctly, as in ICMJE’s own example wording, rather than combined into one imprecise sentence.
- AI-tool use should be disclosed regardless of how minor it appears. Current ICMJE and COPE guidance does not carve out a minor-use exception, and non-disclosure risks being treated as misconduct.
Frequently asked questions
ICMJE's proposal expects the statement to specify how data access is governed, which is easiest to do by naming a specific repository or mechanism, but "available from the corresponding author on reasonable request" is used by many journals when a stated restriction applies.
Such a statement may be sufficient as the conflicts-of-interest declaration when it is accurate, but it does not substitute for the separate funding statement describing the funder’s role and data access.
The named human authors remain fully responsible for all content, including AI-assisted portions — this is explicit in both ICMJE's and COPE's current guidance.
References
- ICMJE. Author Responsibilities — Conflicts of Interest. read 10 October 2026. View ICMJE guidance
- Taichman DB, Backus J, Baethge C, et al. Sharing clinical trial data: a proposal from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2016;164(7):505-506. read 10 October 2026. View via CMAJ
- ICMJE. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Assisted Technology by Authors. read 10 October 2026. View ICMJE guidance
Every source above is a peer-reviewed article, a publisher’s record of one, or a standard issued by the body that owns it. Each carries the date it was last read. Where a standard moves, this article is revised rather than left up with a note.
How to cite this article
Pick your referencing style and copy it. Your university or target journal may vary the punctuation — check its guide if it has one.
Pubrica Academy. (2026, October 10). Declaration and Disclosure Wording Consistent with ICMJE and Major Publisher Requirements. Pubrica. https://pubrica.com/academy/templates/declaration-and-disclosure-wording/
Pubrica Academy. “Declaration and Disclosure Wording Consistent with ICMJE and Major Publisher Requirements.” Pubrica, 10 Oct. 2026, pubrica.com/academy/templates/declaration-and-disclosure-wording/.
Pubrica Academy (2026) Declaration and Disclosure Wording Consistent with ICMJE and Major Publisher Requirements. Pubrica. Available at: https://pubrica.com/academy/templates/declaration-and-disclosure-wording/ (Accessed: 15 October 2026).
Pubrica Academy. “Declaration and Disclosure Wording Consistent with ICMJE and Major Publisher Requirements.” Pubrica. October 10, 2026. https://pubrica.com/academy/templates/declaration-and-disclosure-wording/
Pubrica Academy, ‘Declaration and Disclosure Wording Consistent with ICMJE and Major Publisher Requirements’ (Pubrica, 10 October 2026) <https://pubrica.com/academy/templates/declaration-and-disclosure-wording/> accessed 15 October 2026.
Pubrica Academy. Declaration and Disclosure Wording Consistent with ICMJE and Major Publisher Requirements. [Internet]. Pubrica; 2026 Oct 10 [cited 2026 Oct 15]. Available from: https://pubrica.com/academy/templates/declaration-and-disclosure-wording/
Pubrica Academy, “Declaration and Disclosure Wording Consistent with ICMJE and Major Publisher Requirements,” Pubrica, Oct. 10, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://pubrica.com/academy/templates/declaration-and-disclosure-wording/
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title = {Declaration and Disclosure Wording Consistent with ICMJE and Major Publisher Requirements},
howpublished = {Pubrica},
year = {2026},
month = {oct},
url = {https://pubrica.com/academy/templates/declaration-and-disclosure-wording/},
note = {Accessed: <span data-cite-acc="iso">2026-10-15</span>}
}This article is written to be learned from. Cite it if you are referring to what it says; if you are using the evidence behind it, cite the sources listed above instead.
Declaration check
All five items should be confirmed before submission.
[ ] Authorship statement reflects all four ICMJE criteria per author [ ] Funding statement separates work-support from individual-support, states funder's role explicitly [ ] Conflicts of interest declared or explicitly denied [ ] Data availability statement specifies what, when and how data can be accessed [ ] AI-assistance disclosed if any AI tool was used, with authors' accountability stated
Pubrica AcademyWritten and maintained by Pubrica’s subject matter experts. Articles are revised when the underlying standards change, and each article states the date on which it was last reviewed.
How Pubrica can help
Pubrica drafts all four groups of declarations to the wording currently expected by ICMJE and COPE, matched to the study’s actual funding, data-sharing plan and any AI-tool use, rather than reusing boilerplate.