Contributor Role Ontologies and Taxonomies (CROTs) provide a standard list of roles to specify individual contributions to research. Their most common application has been their inclusion alongside author bylines in scholarly publications. With the recent uptake of CROTs among publishers –particularly the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT)– some have anticipated a positive impact on ethical issues regarding the attribution of credit and responsibilities, but others have voiced concerns about their shortcomings and ways they could be misunderstood or have unintended consequences. 

Thus far, no published review has systematically analyzed CROTs from an ethical perspective, which given their growing significance and uptake in scholarly publishing workflows is both timely and important. Since these discussions have never been consolidated, this DCU research collaboration collated and explored published viewpoints about the ethics of CROTs. We found that CROTs are not the single solution for unethical attributions and should be complemented with initiatives that support social and infrastructural transformation of scholarly publications.