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I'm completing my part time PhD in machine learning/computational finance and work full time at the asset management arm of a bank. I'm writing my first paper, where I've only used resources at my university and not from my work. The intention is to publish to a finance journal. Do I still need to disclose my work affiliation?

The IP clause of my contract is very broad. I'm effectively assigning "all present and future IP rights" during the course of [my] employment to my employer, whether "in whole or in part, alone or in conjunction with others, using work systems or not, during or outside of normal work hours"

[Edit] Ok, my brother is conveniently a lawyer and in his opinion the wording "in the course of your employment" means such restriction is only applicable for work related activity. Before I started my PhD, I've asked (albeit a junior member of) our Compliance and was told that I can publish papers.

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  • The first thing you should do is check any documents you signed when you started the job. This might appear in them.
    – wimi
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 12:10
  • The IP clause of my contract is very broad. I'm effectively assigning "all present and future IP rights" during the course of my employment to my employer, whether "in whole or in part, alone or in conjunction with others, using work systems or not, during or outside of normal work hours"
    – stevew
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 12:31
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    @stevew That sounds quite problematic. Depending on the legal context (country, ...), this would prevent you from publishing work that you haven't finished before your employment started. You may need to get a permission from your current employer to publish your results.
    – DCTLib
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 12:34
  • @stevew this is tricky. You might want to add that information to your question.
    – wimi
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 12:37
  • @stevew What does your university say? At my institution, we have to disclose to the institution any outside activites of a certain scope; full time work would definitely be included. Full time work with an IP clause that broad would definitely DEFINITELY be included, and would likely preclude you from doing research at the university without a modification of those terms, since they are almost certainly at odds with the terms of the work you do at the university and the mission of the university.
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 18:29

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Since you have a contract with the company already assigning all IP rights to them, the affiliation should be the company. Or, perhaps, the company as well as the university.

But a better solution would be to ask a legal officer at the bank what is appropriate here. They can probably dictate what you say, I think, but might agree to let it be the university, depending on the contents of the paper.

Without such an agreement, your affiliation in this case would be "Independent Researcher" or your university. Probably the university would best in this case. The research was done as a student there, not as an employee of a company. The company would be irrelevant. But the signed employment agreement has changed that.

But some advice to others, though it won't help you. If you are already a scholar (or student) and want to take a job with such restrictions, try to work out at the time of hiring any exceptions that are possible for work related to your degree. You may have a bit of leverage here if they really want to hire you.

And, if you are employed under such a restriction and want to take up a degree, try to work out before you start how your academic work will be considered. In this case, you have less leverage, I think, unless the company can find some other value in your work than in claiming it.

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    Thanks, see my comment on my contract above. Does this change anything?
    – stevew
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 12:32
  • Yes, unfortunately. I changed both your question and my answer. Check to see that it is ok.
    – Buffy
    Commented Jan 6, 2020 at 12:39
  • Thanks for this. I've clarified with my brother who's a lawyer and his opinion is this only applies to work activities. I'm guessing that means I wouldn't have to name my work as my affiliation? But yes - others should be more careful with what they are signing up to.
    – stevew
    Commented Jan 7, 2020 at 8:27

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