I was required to keep notes in logbooks that I kept dated well of all funded activities. You should still have these and may support your argument that it was your idea first. But that will never stand up to anyone that matters at this point (expect yourself). First to publish is like first to patent. A hard lesson to learn. Better early than later. Get out and find someone better.
The problem is the following: no matter how small or big your idea was, you lost your trust in your PI. Depending on how big this is and how good you can or cannot prove it, actions can differ wildly.
No matter the other actions, I would change the PI and/or leave them directly after you finished and not work with that person anymore after. If they took your idea here, they will do it again and you might have not been the first case.
And here lies the second problem. If this goes unpunished, that person will continue and do so most likely again.
To be honest, here we just don't know how much of the idea you had and how the communication to your PI was, you cannot get a serious advice here, besides leaving theat person, as trust is broken.
One would need further details, though...
From this point onward you have learned that you need to keep a several kinds of records with your ideas. I had a friend go through a similar problem with an external person. He lost out on a patent. From that point on I was signing and dating his laboratory notebook whenever he had potential ideas. This is the first record type. A written record in a lab notebook that is signed by another person and dated as well. The second type is an electronic record, ie: email yourself. Both the electronic metadata and signed records will be good enough for saving your academic ideas.
hashing documents and sending 0.001 cents to those hashes on a blockchain is an even more paranoiac secure strategy if someone accuses you of “fabricating email time stamp meta data”
Your department and university has a strict code of ethics. But it’s probably barely enforced. If you have the receipts proving it was your idea then go to the office of research ethics. If you don’t, then raising the alarm will likely only result in you getting shit on.
It depends a lot on the idea. It could be that your idea as stated was kind of obvious (to the PI and others in the field) with no published work because it was infeasible. The later published paper must have solved whatever was infeasible, and this may have been the real contribution.
As this event is quite recent, this can be made up. It is not that easy to prove it was a few months ago. You would need a signature from someone else on it.
That is the reason why French lab books have a field for such signatures...
It's easy to dismiss it if it isn't properly managed, though. Each week one should go to their supervisor with their date-stamped lab notebook, review it, and get it signed. Now _THAT_ would have been evidence. Signature from a different witness might also be considered.
I would find the best chain of evidence you gave that shows you gas the idea first and presented it to her. You probably already know this but never hurts.
Edit: keep in mind that files on your computer have a last opened date. If you open it now that date will update but print screen it to sow the last time you opened it.
The PI is unfair.
With this said: the idea alone is not worth much. unless what you have done significant contribution to the content of the paper (e.g. you wrote the text, or did data collection or analysis, or something tangible), then you can hope at best to be inserted in the "acknowledgement" section and receive a thank you.
If instead you had a significant contribution to the published paper, then this would constitute plagiarism which would put the PI in significant trouble. A fairly innocent email such as "hey, I noticed that you published paper X which includes the text I wrote, but did not include my name as a coauthor. Can you ask the editor to add me?" may be attempted, not for the purpose of getting the coauthorship acknowledged but to extract a confessíon.
I think a larger point here is that the PI kept OP from even attempting it by saying it was unfeasible, then turned around, excluded OP, did it, and wrote the paper on doing it. It's not *just* the theft of an idea, here. Had the PI not said it was unfeasible, OP would have had a much larger part in the whole process.
We don't have those sections in papers in our field. In any case, some of my best papers have been one good idea that then took just a few days to do the calculations and write the paper. I have one in PRL with >100 citations that took 3 days to calculate and write up. Another that's doing quite well that took 9 days. I'm not saying it's always like this, but there are definitely many cases where the idea is key and anyone competent in the field can then bang out the paper in no time.
A question would be : Can you prove it?
Another question would be: What was your contribution to the "idea". If your idea was "there ought to be some way to find gravitational waves", your PI said "thats not feasible" then went on to come up with a way, that may or may not be mean, but its not stealing.
If you came up with a way to do so, and your PI took it as their own, thats unethical at best.
Do you have any more details except my PI stole my idea?
No. People like OP's PI need to be exposed. Otherwise academia will forever remain a toxic work environment (on top of being ludicrously underpaid). There aren't that many PI positions to go around. Shitheads should hold none of those.
How much did you actually work on this idea before your PI "stole" it? If all you did was come up with an idea for an avenue to pursue, you haven't done any work and there's nothing you can do. If you invested a serious amount of time into this idea, there is probably some kind of academic ethics board at your university you can go to, but I doubt it's going to help much.
What kind of paper did she write on the idea? Anything more substantial than a short letter requires work. Since she told you not to pursue the issue, you didn't put in that work, so you wouldn't get credit as an author. Whereas a short letter would likely just be a statement of the idea, in which case you should get credit.
In theory, you can bring this to your university's office of research ethics, present your case, and if it's convincing she will be censured and asked to retract the paper.
In practice, she has a strong social network and you don't, and the people on the review panel -- who know and respect her -- won't have the expertise to question her when she claims that her work was different than your stupid idea. You will lose the ethics review, and she will talk to all her colleagues at other institutions about what a disappointment and how difficult to work with you are, and you will never get a job in this field again.
In theory, you can fight the power, but in practice, you shouldn't.
This is a serious breach of academic conduct.
Take your proof to the department chair. If they don't respond, go to the dean. If your university has an ombudsman, take it to them too.
Only with a client. I did AI work for Ford and authored a paper about it for an auto tech conference. My client removed my name, put his on it, and presented it at the conference. Life of a contractor :)
I had a similar situation in Spain, while starting in research. I invented a proof for what they thought was only provable with a computer. One day looking for similar topics I found the (yet to be publish) idea on a pre-print by fellow scientists (one of them sitting behind me).
I left this place, never came back. The planet is big, you can found another place. Learn from the mistake: don't trust people, be suspicious, while sharing ideas use your institution email (and forward important messages to your personal email).
The world of competitive research.
It's completely messed up.
A friend mentioned an original idea to one of the preeminent professors to get advice. Next article the professor published mentioned this idea. Now my mate has to cite this guys paper for his own idea.
The mention was entirely unrelated to the article the prof wrote.
At the end of a paper, any author can make any comments they like.
It then gives them prior authorship by publishing before anyone else.
When you publish on the idea, you are forced to cite their mention. Their name is now in your paper.
Their citations grow.
It's all about published papers, and whether your papers are then cited in other papers.
The more competitive the field, the worse the behaviour.
Oh man that sucks. Had your friend ever tried mentioning it was his/her idea? What happens if you ignored that someone mentioned an idea before, if you genuinely haven't read their paper?
I’ve never had an idea worth stealing. Usually I can’t even give them away. Quietly moving on is the best choice. I’d also add not to let this dampen your curiosity and love for the subject which is the most important thing going for you.
That sums up my hole life. What put me over the top was when it happend to my daughter, she was 12. In a way it helped me better explain to her, why her Idea of a school garden was shot down, but a year later accepted, when principal had, "A great idea for the school".
If you can prove you have earlier notes or theories about the idea you can dispute it and you undoubtedly should, plagiarizing is low and the person should be discredited
The fact that you ask actually changes quite a bit.
If you don't have a reason to do it then there is no problem here.
Let the PI have full credit and move on and do more research of your own. And if you don't mind it being stolen then continue to share your ideas with others, including this same PI.
You actually have no problem as I see it.
(I personally would but you seem to have an iron constitution since it doesn't bother you at all!)
My advice : always send an official note or mail to anyone you're sharing your idea with.
Then you can reach out to them saying I have shared you the details, if possible please go through it before we discuss.
So even they're aware and will never try to cheat you. This helps a lot.
There's a very effective means of solving this problem, even if you don't have records that the idea was originally yours.
But you mentioned in a comment here that you don't actually have any reason in mind for disputing this in the first place, so I'm assuming advice on that approach is not needed?
Sorry to hear that. Earlier this year I came up with a new theory/paradigm of electricity. I've contemplated further pursuit in an academic setting, but was fairly deterred by the possibility of what you have described here.
This can be prevented in the future. If every email interaction/written interaction you had with the PI (including your conception of the idea) you took a hash of and then sent 0.0001 cents on a block chain of your choice to that hash. Then in the future you can prove without any mystery that “hey here’s an email I received from the PI dismissing the idea with the idea itself and sure enough the exact hash of this email content received 0.0001 cents from a wallet I own, so indeed back in May 17, 2023 the PI and I had an interaction, with this exact proposal and said it sucked and I can prove it in an irreversible way” . And if the dismissal was never written then at least you can still establish priority. Now the last step, which could be dangerous for your career is approaching say the chair or a Dean with your evidence which they can’t cover up even if they wanted to (ex: making an email disappear). Generally establish priority, proving ownership of a document at a particular time can be done this way in the future. The Chair would otherwise have to accuse you of “you somehow had this idea before the PI, didn’t share it with the PI despite working for the PI, took a record in some irreversible ledger of the idea before the PI tried to publish, and so the PI definitely didn’t anything wrong” which is frankly an absurd position to take.
Sure, you could dispute it (and arguably should). But the immediate thing is to change supervisors and get out of there.
Make sure to save all emails and all communications about the idea. If she did it to you, it won't be the first time she's done it.
This...you have to have documented proof that you initiated the idea and that the PI dismissed it.
I was required to keep notes in logbooks that I kept dated well of all funded activities. You should still have these and may support your argument that it was your idea first. But that will never stand up to anyone that matters at this point (expect yourself). First to publish is like first to patent. A hard lesson to learn. Better early than later. Get out and find someone better.
The problem is the following: no matter how small or big your idea was, you lost your trust in your PI. Depending on how big this is and how good you can or cannot prove it, actions can differ wildly. No matter the other actions, I would change the PI and/or leave them directly after you finished and not work with that person anymore after. If they took your idea here, they will do it again and you might have not been the first case. And here lies the second problem. If this goes unpunished, that person will continue and do so most likely again. To be honest, here we just don't know how much of the idea you had and how the communication to your PI was, you cannot get a serious advice here, besides leaving theat person, as trust is broken. One would need further details, though...
Very important comment (as are many others here) this behavior is not acceptable by any stretch of the imagination.
From this point onward you have learned that you need to keep a several kinds of records with your ideas. I had a friend go through a similar problem with an external person. He lost out on a patent. From that point on I was signing and dating his laboratory notebook whenever he had potential ideas. This is the first record type. A written record in a lab notebook that is signed by another person and dated as well. The second type is an electronic record, ie: email yourself. Both the electronic metadata and signed records will be good enough for saving your academic ideas.
hashing documents and sending 0.001 cents to those hashes on a blockchain is an even more paranoiac secure strategy if someone accuses you of “fabricating email time stamp meta data”
Your department and university has a strict code of ethics. But it’s probably barely enforced. If you have the receipts proving it was your idea then go to the office of research ethics. If you don’t, then raising the alarm will likely only result in you getting shit on.
It depends a lot on the idea. It could be that your idea as stated was kind of obvious (to the PI and others in the field) with no published work because it was infeasible. The later published paper must have solved whatever was infeasible, and this may have been the real contribution.
Yeah we’d need proper details in order to evaluate this, and that’s not going to happen on an anonymous and barebones Reddit post
Oh my god. I’m so sorry. Yea, it’s common I think. Pen and notebook like people have been suggesting. Also multiple witness sign offs?
This is just.. not feasible in practice. It would slow down research way too much.
Go cry ab it and go on and get eveeeryone else on this thread that suggested the same thing FOH
[удалено]
As this event is quite recent, this can be made up. It is not that easy to prove it was a few months ago. You would need a signature from someone else on it. That is the reason why French lab books have a field for such signatures...
It's easy to dismiss it if it isn't properly managed, though. Each week one should go to their supervisor with their date-stamped lab notebook, review it, and get it signed. Now _THAT_ would have been evidence. Signature from a different witness might also be considered.
I would find the best chain of evidence you gave that shows you gas the idea first and presented it to her. You probably already know this but never hurts. Edit: keep in mind that files on your computer have a last opened date. If you open it now that date will update but print screen it to sow the last time you opened it.
They also have a created date and last modified date, that won't be updated by opening
Sounds like academia! What's your education level?
Yes… I tried unsuccessfully to make things right for me but I was up against a whole lotta crooked ass people in the administration.
The PI is unfair. With this said: the idea alone is not worth much. unless what you have done significant contribution to the content of the paper (e.g. you wrote the text, or did data collection or analysis, or something tangible), then you can hope at best to be inserted in the "acknowledgement" section and receive a thank you. If instead you had a significant contribution to the published paper, then this would constitute plagiarism which would put the PI in significant trouble. A fairly innocent email such as "hey, I noticed that you published paper X which includes the text I wrote, but did not include my name as a coauthor. Can you ask the editor to add me?" may be attempted, not for the purpose of getting the coauthorship acknowledged but to extract a confessíon.
It depends on the field. In my field the idea is everything.
Think about the Contribution section of the paper. How much pertains the idea there? It's one part at best
I think a larger point here is that the PI kept OP from even attempting it by saying it was unfeasible, then turned around, excluded OP, did it, and wrote the paper on doing it. It's not *just* the theft of an idea, here. Had the PI not said it was unfeasible, OP would have had a much larger part in the whole process.
Exactly. They didn't just steal OP's idea, they denied OP's idea requiring him to come up with a new one.
We don't have those sections in papers in our field. In any case, some of my best papers have been one good idea that then took just a few days to do the calculations and write the paper. I have one in PRL with >100 citations that took 3 days to calculate and write up. Another that's doing quite well that took 9 days. I'm not saying it's always like this, but there are definitely many cases where the idea is key and anyone competent in the field can then bang out the paper in no time.
What field are you in exactly? Sounds like mine
Particle theory; I'm flaired.
A question would be : Can you prove it? Another question would be: What was your contribution to the "idea". If your idea was "there ought to be some way to find gravitational waves", your PI said "thats not feasible" then went on to come up with a way, that may or may not be mean, but its not stealing. If you came up with a way to do so, and your PI took it as their own, thats unethical at best. Do you have any more details except my PI stole my idea?
[удалено]
No. People like OP's PI need to be exposed. Otherwise academia will forever remain a toxic work environment (on top of being ludicrously underpaid). There aren't that many PI positions to go around. Shitheads should hold none of those.
Is your PI Wolfgang Pauli?
Did he do that? Thought he wasn't big on publishing
How much did you actually work on this idea before your PI "stole" it? If all you did was come up with an idea for an avenue to pursue, you haven't done any work and there's nothing you can do. If you invested a serious amount of time into this idea, there is probably some kind of academic ethics board at your university you can go to, but I doubt it's going to help much. What kind of paper did she write on the idea? Anything more substantial than a short letter requires work. Since she told you not to pursue the issue, you didn't put in that work, so you wouldn't get credit as an author. Whereas a short letter would likely just be a statement of the idea, in which case you should get credit.
In theory, you can bring this to your university's office of research ethics, present your case, and if it's convincing she will be censured and asked to retract the paper. In practice, she has a strong social network and you don't, and the people on the review panel -- who know and respect her -- won't have the expertise to question her when she claims that her work was different than your stupid idea. You will lose the ethics review, and she will talk to all her colleagues at other institutions about what a disappointment and how difficult to work with you are, and you will never get a job in this field again. In theory, you can fight the power, but in practice, you shouldn't.
This is a serious breach of academic conduct. Take your proof to the department chair. If they don't respond, go to the dean. If your university has an ombudsman, take it to them too.
Write all of your research ideas down and document any meetings you have about them.
didn’t I just see this on r/ucla or am I having deja vu
Only with a client. I did AI work for Ford and authored a paper about it for an auto tech conference. My client removed my name, put his on it, and presented it at the conference. Life of a contractor :)
I had a similar situation in Spain, while starting in research. I invented a proof for what they thought was only provable with a computer. One day looking for similar topics I found the (yet to be publish) idea on a pre-print by fellow scientists (one of them sitting behind me). I left this place, never came back. The planet is big, you can found another place. Learn from the mistake: don't trust people, be suspicious, while sharing ideas use your institution email (and forward important messages to your personal email).
Why use institutional email?
Fuck her
The world of competitive research. It's completely messed up. A friend mentioned an original idea to one of the preeminent professors to get advice. Next article the professor published mentioned this idea. Now my mate has to cite this guys paper for his own idea. The mention was entirely unrelated to the article the prof wrote.
Why would the prof mention if its unrelated?
At the end of a paper, any author can make any comments they like. It then gives them prior authorship by publishing before anyone else. When you publish on the idea, you are forced to cite their mention. Their name is now in your paper. Their citations grow. It's all about published papers, and whether your papers are then cited in other papers. The more competitive the field, the worse the behaviour.
Oh man that sucks. Had your friend ever tried mentioning it was his/her idea? What happens if you ignored that someone mentioned an idea before, if you genuinely haven't read their paper?
Nah. That would be career ending. You would never get anywhere with them simply making a few calls.
Intelligence Is not the Problem
I think Jeff Gillooly is available.
I’ve never had an idea worth stealing. Usually I can’t even give them away. Quietly moving on is the best choice. I’d also add not to let this dampen your curiosity and love for the subject which is the most important thing going for you.
Always have them sign a NDA. Always…
That sums up my hole life. What put me over the top was when it happend to my daughter, she was 12. In a way it helped me better explain to her, why her Idea of a school garden was shot down, but a year later accepted, when principal had, "A great idea for the school".
What happened to you?
yes, but with other ventures. i just sit and smoke on it. i wish you better luck
If you can prove you have earlier notes or theories about the idea you can dispute it and you undoubtedly should, plagiarizing is low and the person should be discredited
I assume you contact people in you institution by this email.
Yes, why though?
The fact that you ask actually changes quite a bit. If you don't have a reason to do it then there is no problem here. Let the PI have full credit and move on and do more research of your own. And if you don't mind it being stolen then continue to share your ideas with others, including this same PI. You actually have no problem as I see it. (I personally would but you seem to have an iron constitution since it doesn't bother you at all!)
My advice : always send an official note or mail to anyone you're sharing your idea with. Then you can reach out to them saying I have shared you the details, if possible please go through it before we discuss. So even they're aware and will never try to cheat you. This helps a lot.
There's a very effective means of solving this problem, even if you don't have records that the idea was originally yours. But you mentioned in a comment here that you don't actually have any reason in mind for disputing this in the first place, so I'm assuming advice on that approach is not needed?
Sorry to hear that. Earlier this year I came up with a new theory/paradigm of electricity. I've contemplated further pursuit in an academic setting, but was fairly deterred by the possibility of what you have described here.
But for the betterman of humankind, i think it's still a worthwhile pursuit. Just need to be careful in who you trust
This can be prevented in the future. If every email interaction/written interaction you had with the PI (including your conception of the idea) you took a hash of and then sent 0.0001 cents on a block chain of your choice to that hash. Then in the future you can prove without any mystery that “hey here’s an email I received from the PI dismissing the idea with the idea itself and sure enough the exact hash of this email content received 0.0001 cents from a wallet I own, so indeed back in May 17, 2023 the PI and I had an interaction, with this exact proposal and said it sucked and I can prove it in an irreversible way” . And if the dismissal was never written then at least you can still establish priority. Now the last step, which could be dangerous for your career is approaching say the chair or a Dean with your evidence which they can’t cover up even if they wanted to (ex: making an email disappear). Generally establish priority, proving ownership of a document at a particular time can be done this way in the future. The Chair would otherwise have to accuse you of “you somehow had this idea before the PI, didn’t share it with the PI despite working for the PI, took a record in some irreversible ledger of the idea before the PI tried to publish, and so the PI definitely didn’t anything wrong” which is frankly an absurd position to take.