[D] ICIP 2026 Desk-rejected

Hi all,

I’m trying to better understand how IEEE/ICIP authorship standards are interpreted in practice.

Our ICIP 2026 submission was desk-rejected after the committee reviewed the author contribution statements. The message said that one or more listed authors did not meet IEEE authorship conditions, particularly the requirement of a significant intellectual contribution, and that some of the described contributions were considered more appropriate for acknowledgments than authorship.

I am not posting to dispute the decision. I understand the decision is final. I am posting because I want to understand where the authorship line is being drawn here, so I can avoid making the same mistake in future submissions.

What confused me is that the contribution statements were not written as vague support roles like “helped with the project” or “provided general support.” They were written in a more specific way, similar to how contributions are often described in many conference submissions. For example, one statement was along the lines of:

I had assumed that this would be interpreted as a meaningful research contribution. However, based on the decision, it seems that ICIP/IEEE may view this differently, or may require a stronger form of direct intellectual ownership than I expected.

So I wanted to ask:

1. Under IEEE-style authorship rules, would contributions like reviewing the technical idea, commenting on experimental design, giving feedback on method formulation, and validating technical soundness often be considered insufficient for authorship?
2. Is the issue usually the substance of the contribution itself, or can it also be the way the contribution is phrased in the submission form?
3. In cases like this, does a conference sometimes reject the entire paper immediately based on the contribution statements, rather than asking for a correction?
4. For those with experience in IEEE conferences, what kinds of contribution statements are generally seen as clearly sufficient vs. borderline?

I’d appreciate any insight, especially from people who have dealt with IEEE authorship policies or conference submission forms before.

Thanks.