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Last year, I wrote a proposal for DFG, a German body funding, with my colleague and we got money to hire three PhD students on my side, and two on my colleague’s side in another university. In the proposal, I had used some not very well-known mathematical methods to derive some results related to chemistry which was the main goal of proposal.

Now, one of my PhD students has reported me to the university authorities for plagiarism. My question is: How serious is the situation? Can they sack me for just not citing the methods that I have used? Can I call the granting body for correction and refining the proposal and updating the citations?

I had learned about these methods in some posters presented in a conference several years ago. But I had no clue that these papers are published and are available on the internet. (These methods are vital to obtain the main results of my proposal.)

Also, does any one know how these matters are handled in Germany? In my home country, in South America, it’s much more relaxed.

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If you describe methods in your DFG proposal without attributing them, you claim that they are your own ideas. It does not matter whether they are published in a paper.

So the very first thing you need to do is to contact the DFG, retract the proposal and return the money. Then you need to apologise and explain yourself.

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    @Ralf That's a weird thing to say. Other research projects that did not receive funding in that round might need the money ;)
    – Felix Emanuel
    Commented Mar 27, 2022 at 12:44
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    @Ralf I am not really sure that you understand how serious this is. If you do not have a permanent position yet, this could easily end your whole academic career. This could even be considered fraud, although it is unlikely that the police will investigate this.
    – J Fabian Meier
    Commented Mar 27, 2022 at 13:47
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    @Ralf In most other countries, universities will ask for references. If you cannot provide any from Germany although you worked there, this will look bad.
    – J Fabian Meier
    Commented Mar 27, 2022 at 15:42
  • I think the first thing the OP needs to do is to talk with their co-PI, not contact the DFG.
    – user151413
    Commented Mar 27, 2022 at 16:41
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As Buzz mentioned in comments, the fact that your own PhD student reported you for plagiarism is deeply troubling. It indicates that your PhD student is very unhappy with you as an academic supervisor. But you do not even mention why your PhD student reported you to the University, as if their motivation does not matter. I would expect a PhD supervisor to be better involved in academic life of their student to be able at least spot the problem before it hits you in the back.

The way how you describe the alleged misconduct is also deeply troubling to me. The methods are clearly potent enough to help you win a significant piece of funding, yet you did not care to research them properly and establish attribution in three years. Your attempts to explain the situation sound rather weak to me.

I had no clue that these papers are published and are available on the internet.

In academia, when we do not "have a clue" about things, we research them. You had three years to find out and many ways to do so: to contact the author of the poster and ask her for references, to search online, to ask a colleague in your department or from a maths department for help. I expect a PhD student to be persistent enough to find proper references for their paper; I am shocked that an established academic attempts to brush it off with a simple "I dunno" comment.

To answer your questions:

Can I call the granting body for correction and refining the proposal and updating the citations?

Please read the definition of plagiarism or ask people from the ethical committee at your university to explain them to you. Plagiarism is an act of passing someone else's intellectual work as your own. By default, a funding panel assumes that all ideas put in your proposal are your own, unless specified otherwise. The funding you received is a recognition of the strength and value of these ideas – and these ideas are not your own! You can amend the document, but it does not wipe the fact that your proposal have likely misled the awarding panel. And obviously you cannot return the funding because it is already spent on hiring the PhD students and staff for the project.

Can they sack me for just not citing the methods that I have used?

It depends on the policies and practices of your university, and frankly on how much support your head of department is willing to offer you. If this information is passed on to the funder – which your university is probably obligated to do – it is likely that you may be banned from making further applications for several years at least. Your university may not be pleased with it.

I am shocked, however, that you are concerned with your own safety rather with making things right. The real problem is not that your PhD student reported you, but that you clearly do not understand the ethical standards of the environment you chose to work in. Your real concern should be not to fix the proposal, but to fix your own misunderstanding of how academic research works.

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    Not to mention that even if there were no published papers, one could and should cite the poster presented at the conference.
    – Massimo Ortolano
    Commented Mar 27, 2022 at 10:07
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    "It depends on the policies and practices of your university, and frankly on how much support your head of department is willing to offer you." - I don't think either of these statements is particularly applicable in Germany. Whether the OP can be sacked mostly depends on the type of their position. And heads of department are often not particularly powerful in Germany.
    – user151413
    Commented Mar 27, 2022 at 16:03