I want to use a figure from a published paper (in a Wiley journal) in a grant proposal. Since the raw data is not available, I have directly copy-pasted the image of the figure. In addition to reporting the source of the figure in the figure caption, is there anything else that needs to be done? The figure is a simple scatter plot.
1 Answer
The safe way to do that is to confirm that you are allowed to reproduce a figure for this purpose. Double check who holds that copyright, it could be either the author or the publisher. If it is the publisher, start by checking to see if they have some blanket statement on reproducing figures for academic use. If that leads nowhere, you'll have to reach out to the copyright holder directly and ask for permission.
In reality, whether or not you actually get permission probably depends where you are sending this proposal. I might treat an internal grant differently than a NIH grant for instance. In the first case, I think simply citing the work is okay. In the latter case, I would make sure I had the proper permissions.
It's better to have permission and not need it than to need permission and not have it. It would be a very silly thing to lose a grant over.
