What does “Project administration” mean in CRediT?

Project administration is one of the 14 roles of CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy), published as the ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022 standard. NISO (National Information Standards Organization) defines it as “Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.”

NISO’s examples include tracking and reporting progress, schedules and budgets, and checking compliance with ethical, legal, governance, health and safety requirements; recruiting the participants a method requires, for example for interviews, focus groups, surveys, fieldwork or clinical trials; arranging logistics for fieldwork, equipment and space; and handling correspondence with the team, journal editors and institutional departments.

The nearest role is Supervision, which NISO describes as responsibility for overseeing and leading the same planning and execution, and which extends to mentoring people outside the core team. NISO’s Supervision examples center on setting milestones, ensuring the quality of deliverables, teaching, training and advising team members, and guiding methods and interpretation. The two lists overlap on progress tracking and ethics; read together, the definitions place coordination work with Project administration and leadership and mentoring with Supervision. Developing budgets is listed under Funding acquisition.

CRediT roles describe contributions and do not determine authorship. The ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) lists general administrative support, and general supervision of a research group, among activities that on their own do not justify authorship.