If the GAMESS-UK code is used to obtain a result, and the result is published than the following citation should be used:

GAMESS-UK is a package of ab initio programs. See: "http://www.cfs.dl.ac.uk/gamess-uk/index.shtml", M.F. Guest, I. J. Bush, H.J.J. van Dam, P. Sherwood, J.M.H. Thomas, J.H. van Lenthe, R.W.A Havenith, J. Kendrick, "The GAMESS-UK electronic structure package: algorithms, developments and applications", Molecular Physics, Vol. 103, No. 6-8, 20 March-20 April 2005, 719-747.

The above is the official citation, the previously recommended citation, that was used with all versions of the code previous to release 7.0 was:

GAMESS-UK is a package of ab initio programs written by M.F. Guest, J.H. van Lenthe, J. Kendrick, K. Schöffel, P. Sherwood, and R.J. Harrison, with contributions from R.D. Amos, R.J. Buenker, M. Dupuis, N.C. Handy, I.H. Hillier, P.J. Knowles, V. Bonacic-Koutecky, W. von Niessen, V.R. Saunders, and A. Stone. The package is derived from the original GAMESS code due to M. Dupuis, D. Spangler and J. Wendoloski, NRCC Software Catalog, Vol. 1, Program No. QG01 (GAMESS), 1980.
The paper used for the official citation includes within it references to many of the people who contributed code to GAMESS-UK over the years. Additional acknowledgements are made within the GAMESS-UK manual, which can be found here, and are also reproduced below (with contributors listed by module):

  • MCSCF/CASSCF:
    • P.J. Knowles, G.J. Sexton and N.C. Handy, Chem. Phys. 72 (1982) 337:
    • P.J. Knowles and H.-J. Werner, Chem. Phys. Lett. 115 (1985) 259.
  • MØLLER-PLESSET PERTURBATION THEORY (MP2, MP3):
    • J.E. Rice, R.D.Amos, N.C. Handy, T.J. Lee and H.F. Schaefer, J. Chem. Phys. 85 (1986) 963:
    • J.D. Watts and M. Dupuis, J. Comput. Chem. 9 (1988) 158.
  • FULL CI (FCI):
    • S. Zarrabian and R.J. Harrison, Chem. Phys. Letts. 81 (1989)
  • DIRECT-CI (DCI):
    • V.R. Saunders and J.H. van Lenthe, Mol. Phys. 48 (1983) 923.
  • CONVENTIONAL CI (MRDCI):
    • R.J. Buenker in `Studies in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry', 21 (1982) 17.
  • DISTRIBUTED MULTIPOLE ANALYSIS (DMA):
    • A.J. Stone, Chem. Phys. Letters 83 (1981) 233.
  • OUTER-VALENCE GREENS' FUNCTION (OVGF):
    • L.S. Cederbaum and W. Domcke, Adv. Chem. Phys. 36 (1977) 205.
  • TAMM-DANCOFF METHOD (TDA):
    • J. Schirmer and L.S. Cederbaum, J. Phys. B11 (1978) 1889:
      • I.H. Hillier, K. Rigby, M. Vincent, M.F. Guest and W. von Niessen, Chem. Phys. Lett. 134 (1987) 403.
  • EFFECTIVE CORE POTENTIALS (LOCAL ECPS):
    • P.J. Hay and W.R. Wadt, J. Chem. Phys. 82 (1985) 270, 284, 299.
  • EFFECTIVE CORE POTENTIALS (NON-LOCAL ECPS):
    • Ph. Durand and J.C.Berthelat, Theoret. Chim. acta, 38 (1975) 283: N.A. Burton, I.H. Hillier, M.F. Guest and J. Kendrick, Chem. Phys. Lett. 155 (1989) 195.
  • INFRA-RED AND RAMAN INTENSITIES:
    • R.D. Amos, Adv. Chem. Phys. 67 (1987) 99.
  • MULTI CONFIGURATION LINEAR RESPONSE (MCLR):
    • C. Fuchs, V. Bonacic-Koutecký and J. Koutecký, J. Chem. Phys. 98 (1993) 3121.
  • COUPLED CLUSTER CCSD AND CCSD(T):
    • T.J. Lee, J.E. Rice and A.P. Rendell, The TITAN Set of Electronic Structure Programs, 1991,
  • DENSITY FUNCTIONAL THEORY (DFT):
    • The initial DFT module within GAMESS-UK was developed by Dr. P. Young under the auspices of EPSRC's Collaborative Computational Project No. 1 (CCP1) (1995-1997). Subsequent developments have been undertaken by staff at the Daresbury Laboratory.
  • DIRECT REACTION FIELD (DRF):
    • A.H. de Vries, P.Th. van Duijnen, A.H. Juffer, J.A.C. Rullmann, J.P. Dijkman, H. Merenga, and B.T. Thole, J. Comput. Chem. 16 (1995) 37 and 16xx; P.Th. van Duijnen and A.H. de Vries, Int. J. Quant. Chem., 60 (1996) 1111;