  Conducting a research project with multiple participants is a complex task
that involves not only scientific but also multiple social, political, and
psychological interactions. This complexity becomes particularly evident when
it comes to navigating the selection process for the number and order of
co-authors on the resulting manuscript for publication due to the current form
of collaboration dynamics common in academia. There is currently no
computational model to generate a data-driven suggestion that could be used as
a baseline for understating these dynamics. To address this limitation, we have
developed a first game-theory-based model to generate such a baseline for
co-authorship. In our model, co-authors can issued an ultimatum to pause the
publication of the manuscript until the underlying issue has been resolved. We
modeled the effect of issuing one or more ultimatums and showed that they have
a major impact on the ultimate number and position of co-authors and the length
of the publication process. In addition, we explored the effect of two common
relationships (student-advisor and colleague-colleague) on co-authorship
scenarios. The results of our model are alarming and suggest that the current
academic practices are not fit for purpose. Where they work, they work because
of the integrity of researchers and not by a systematic design.
