I am a PhD student currently needing advice on a paper submission issue with a previous supervisor (or advisor/mentor in some countries).
Last year, I discovered that my supervisor had not gotten ethics approval for part of my project, but she had been instructing me to collect the data anyway (sensitive personal info from cancer patients). The two other PhD students both had similar ethical and professional issues with this supervisor, so we decided to talk to our faculty about what to do. The university investigated and the supervisor got fired. The three of us had to start our PhD's again but we are all with much better labs now.
I wrote a systematic review last year with my old supervisor and a bunch of other co-authors. I was first author and my supervisor was senior and corresponding. We got knocked back from the first journal in October last year, shortly before all of the conflict happened. It's now been 6 months and I really want to submit the paper to a new journal (reviews go out of date quickly!). I have been instructed by my university to have no contact with the old supervisor, so I selected a new journal and decided to make myself the corresponding author, still leaving her as senior.
Here's where the problem is, I got advice from a few executives at my university and they supported me submitting the paper to a new journal but told me that we need to get consent from all authors including my old supervisor. The dean corresponded with the old supervisor on my behalf and (I was told) the supervisor responded saying something to the effect of 'I'm the senior author AND corresponding author and I need to submit this myself, no one else is to do it on my behalf'. The supervisor also said that it was 'on her list of things to do' but that was over 3 weeks ago and I haven't been notified of any submissions yet.
**Edit: This paper is a review and features none of the improper data. That data has been handed over to the university and will not be published.
I don't care who submits it, I just want it to get done. It seems as though she is intentionally being difficult and delaying things. My university have told me that unfortunately there isn't much I can do but wait for her to take care of it.
Are there any other options? I would hate to have worked so hard and have a great paper just sit there doing nothing.