Anticipate Conflicts Posted on March 19, 2007 Decide early about authorship issues in studies with multiple PIs, suggests Stephen Hinshaw (bio).

So what about other conflicts? Authorship is a big one or the kinds of things that one investigative team may think they have rights to over another investigative team. Pre-planning is everything. Anticipate problems ahead of time; have a set of bylaws or working rules generated so that there is a steering committee or an organizing committee across the sites to anticipate, are there differences in opinion about authorship? Are there differences in opinion about how an emergent situation is handled? Those bylaws and regulations may not resolve every dispute but they set in motion a process for how those difficulties or differences of opinion get resolved. That kind of pre-planning is essential.

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