In group meeting, one colleague presents my ideas as if they are his original ideas

Question

This is a follow-up of Someone claim to "indepdently discovery the same thing (two years after me)"

Long story short, I'm now working with Jason, in a large team.

I chat with Jason once a week and the team meet once every two weeks. So inevitably I shared many of my ideas and writings with Jason, prior to sharing with the large group. I shared three ideas (A,B,C) in total, all of them are important in solve our research question.

Then, on the meeting, Jason presents the three ideas as they are his. He uses pronouns like "I find", "my idea", and print out handouts without my trace on it. Two of the ideas (A,B) were exactly same as mine with same formulations, while the third idea he altered a little.

When I ask him (verbally, non-formal) about it, he says:

1. He did not read my writing in details (which seems not true as we chatted on it over the phone for many times)

2. He think our works were just similar

3. He says we are a team anyways so I need to chill. Things are just preliminary.

He later tells the group that I had a similar idea A. He neither says he is inspired by me nor he says our ideas are the same.

It is unlikely that he come-up-with the ideas by himself. Because when I started to talk about ABC, he told me that the ideas ABC were not needed. I later convinced him that ABC must be used to properly solve our problem.

I haven't make any formal statement to the group. What should I do here?

Answer 1

Other answers have given you the instructions for "playing nice". You can certainly follow them if you want.

But if you are sure that Jason will take advantage of you in the long run and want to make sure you do not lose credit for work that is deserved, here is a plan:

Stage 1: Probation

Goal: protect yourself while giving Jason a chance to prove he's actually not evil (maybe just careless)

1. Avoid one-on-one meetings with Jason as much as possible.

2. But when they do happen, take evidence:

   • Write down your ideas in emails (or attachments) and send them to Jason from your official email before the meeting.
   • Create calendar appointments for all meetings and invite Jason through his official email.
   • Take notes during the meeting. Write dates on those notes and scan them into the computer.

Do not complain to anyone in the group at this stage. Accumulate evidence to back up what you will need to say later.

Stage 1.5: Infraction

If Jason once again "comes up" with an idea that is actually yours, again take evidence. Record when this happened and keep copies of any handouts.

Stage 2: Escalation

Once Jason has "come up" with your ideas enough times, you should approach your supervisor. Organise all your evidence -- you may find this useful:

1. I had idea X on date A (attach original email / notes)
2. Jason and I met on date B and discussed in more detail (attach calendar event record)
3. At meeting C, Jason suggested X without crediting me (attach handout / notes)

Raise all incidents with your supervisor and ask them to tell Jason to stop.

Do not complain to anyone else in the group at this stage. This way, you keep your hands clean and give nobody any grounds to accuse you of trying to hurt Jason.

Stage 3: Resolution

After this, the situation should resolve in one of the following ways:

1. Jason apologises and starts crediting you properly for your ideas. Everybody wins!
2. Jason decides to leave. His loss, the group will keep going on.
3. Your supervisor decides that Jason's actions are okay and won't take serious action. Then you have to decide whether to stay or to leave, the latter probably being the most sensible option. (At this stage, you have every right to tell anyone you want in the group about what has happened, since your supervisor has failed to handle it themselves.)

PS: keeping evidence is the most important and new part of this answer. Once you have evidence, you can use your judgement to use it in various ways.

For example, if your group has a culture of disliking confrontation, you may just decide that the next time Jason brings up an idea of yours without crediting you, you can just put your hand up and say "Yeah, Idea Z is a great idea! I actually suggested that to Jason two or three days ago while we were discussing problem P." The evidence helps you add specific details which make your story believable - without (openly) criticising Jason.

Answer 2

I think the concept of arguing over ideas at this stage is silly, but people get tied up in "who came up with it first". It always leads to these sorts of situations. In a perfect world, Jason would be and making it clear this is a joint effort. Instead, there's resentment brewing since it sounds like he is more than happy to speak first and take the credit, at least implicitly. To be clear, I don't think you're wrong for feeling slighted, only that this should never be an issue in the first place.

Normally, my advice for disagreements like this is communication. Just talk to Jason openly - tell him you feel like you're not being recognized for your contribution. It sounds like you already did this though. I don't like that he seems to have dismissed you outright but I have to wonder how real vs perceived this slight is.

How you follow up depends on what you want. If credit in the moment is most important (or you are concerned about being muscled out of a publication because it looks like you're not contributing) then talk to someone else. I don't know who that might be, maybe the senior author, but express how you feel clearly in a non-accusatory way. Even if nothing changes, a 3rd party is aware.

If you're more interested keeping relations smooth, do nothing. As long as you're being credited on papers, claiming ideas in the weekly team meeting is meaningless. If what Jason is doing is as egregious as you make it out to be, others will notice. It may be that others assume you two came up with these ideas together anyway.

The nuclear option is publicly calling him out. Shaming, accusations, or generally making a scene during a lab meeting is not going to get you a good resolution, though. Advocate for yourself but be careful to not burn bridges.

The last option, which I hesitate to even mention, is to play to the game.

Answer 3

So lots of this depends on context, too. Let me give an example. My coworker developed an econometric method for his dissertation. We've since started working together, and I translated his R code into Python and made his estimator into a complete standalone Python package, much better and improved from the first one.

When I give talks that use it, I will cite his dissertation, or our other coauthored paper that employs this method. I suspect I'll use language like "my" or "our" when it's really his idea to begin with. But is this wrong? No. We're coworkers, we developed the Python package together. Yeah the idea for the estimator isn't strictly my own, but since we've since refined it, I think it's perfectly alright to use that kind of language because we've collaborated on it since his dissertation.

So, as another answer says, unless your name won't appear on the publications, or other things that you'd really benefit from, it likely isn't worth worrying about unless it'll affect you in other ways.