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I recently started (last week) a post-doc position and I have a submitted paper which got an R&R before finishing my Ph.D and having this post-doc position. I will resubmit the paper this week and my current director says that I should change the affiliation on the revised version of the paper and mention that the paper is financially supported by the institution where I am a post-doctoral fellow.

I wonder if it is correct and ethical to change the affiliation because 99,9% of the work has been done under the financial support of the institution where I have done my Ph.D.

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  • Is it a journal or conference paper? If there are any fees (like publication fee, travel expenses), who is paying for those? In general I would support your point of view. Maybe you can add two affiliations?
    – OBu
    Oct 5 '18 at 11:13
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    Possible duplicate of Changing affiliation on publication
    – user2768
    Oct 5 '18 at 11:17
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    Not a dupe IMHO. The other question is about papers that are part-written but not submitted. This question is about a paper that is in revision following peer review.
    – Flyto
    Oct 5 '18 at 13:05
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Affiliation is mostly for identification. There is no formal definition requiring it to be linked to the institution in which most of the work was done. I'd suggest that you follow the advice of your director, for political reasons if no other. It may be important to the current institution to connect itself to your work.

But there is no reason that you can't also acknowledge your former institution within the paper if they also gave you support. Add a footnote mentioning the institutions that supported the work.

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    In the past (it has been quite sometime since I moved), the practice was for the affiliation in the author list to indicate where you were when the work was done, with a footnote indicating one’s current affiliation. Having the new supervisor ‘claim’ the work seems unwarranted.
    – Jon Custer
    Oct 5 '18 at 19:10
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Change in Affiliation: I would suggest that a researcher write his/her current affiliation/s. It also I think is the responsibility of a researcher to update the publishers about any changes in affiliation and contact details.

Regarding Financial Support: In this case, a part of the researcher's funding/finance came from the first institution and now s/he is being financially supported by the current institution. Thus s/he can mention the scenario in his/her own words briefly so due credit could be given to both the institutions.

You could also be contacting the publisher (if you have sent the paper to a publisher) to seek their advice.

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Was there, done that.

In my case, I wrote my new affiliation on the paper (because it was the place, where I was at that moment). I mentioned both old and new grants in the acknowledgement section. I also wrote there that most of the work has been done at the place of old affiliation.

You need to be especially careful with conferences. I've personally seen cases where the new institution was not willing to pay for travel, because the paper appeared with the old affiliation. (Basically, I got another job after submitting the camera version, but before the conference date.)

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