Authors, Contributors, and Reviewers
The technical support units, co-chairs, and bureaus of each working group together assemble a list of proposed authors for its assessment, but the lead authors are selected by the entire working group. Governments and non-governmental organizations around the world are invited to nominate potential authors.
A government nomination does not imply that the scientist’s views are endorsed by that government, or that the scientist is expected to represent his or her government’s view. It
maymean that a government has provided a scientist with financial support, but many scientists receive no financial support at all and others are merely reimbursed for travel expenses
. Experts from developing nations who have received no financial support from their government are supported through the IPCC trust fund.
From these nominations, the full working group membership confirms 5 to 10 lead and coordinating lead authors, as well as two review editors, for each chapter of its assessment; every chapter must have at least one lead author from a developing country. In general, the appointed scientists are widely recognized experts who represent a broad range of expertise and opinion; they may come from academia, research facilities, industry, government, and non-government organizations (NGOs). A complete list of the lead authors is available at the IPCC website (
www.ipcc.ch).