I'm a PhD student in a country in Europe. There is a collaborating PhD student from another institute (in a different country), who has worked closely with my PI (principal investigator) and me. Some simulations were run on the HPC (high-performance computing) cluster their institute has available since they use a proprietary software we don't have access to (the software belongs to the university and not to the group). It was discussed prior to beginning this collaboration that the paper would include me, the collaborating PhD student and my PI as authors (This has been discussed with the PI of the collaborating PhD and he had agreed to it). But now, when the paper is almost completely written, he is insisting that he should be a part of it (with the reason that he is the PI of the collaborating PhD). At the same time, my PI wouldn't prefer that considering his career. How do I handle this without burning too many bridges.
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23The student was paid by their PI on their grant. The HPC cluster access is because of the PI. Their PI quite likely had numerous discussions with the student. While you may not have seen any of this, that does not mean they didn’t happen.– Jon CusterCommented Jul 26 at 14:57
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2@JonCuster In my case, I am given access to the HPC by the university, I am being paid by the university, and my PI did not contribute to anything relevant in the paper, not even meaningful discussions. Yet my PI will still be on the paper because it is convention and is just expected of you. OP you will not receive the answer you want here and you will be largely be told "do not burn the bridge with your PI", which is starting to be a little exhausting on this stack tbh.– OkanoCommented Jul 28 at 12:04
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1@Okano - perhaps. I would suggest that you get that because you are a student with a PI at the institution. It certainly won’t happen for someone walking in off the street. The things you mention may well be paid for out of grant overhead from your PI and others. No such thing as a free lunch and whatnot…– Jon CusterCommented Jul 28 at 22:37
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I'm confused by the last sentence... Are you saying your PI doesn't think the other PI should be an author?– isolated matrixCommented Jul 30 at 7:02
4 Answers
Depending on the field, the desires of that other PI might be proper or not. In some fields PIs are included in almost all papers because without their background participation the research might be impossible. I note that many disagree with this system, but it exists.
If your judgment is that this is not the case and the other PI really has no authorship claim, I suggest that you let your own PI take the lead in excluding the other person. Defer to their judgement to avoid burning any bridges. Let the people with authority fight it out. The outcome may not be entirely satisfactory, but it is probably adequate for your purposes.
In particular, don't get between powerful people in any dispute. That will also be unsatisfactory.
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1That will also be unsatisfactory I like this euphemism. I envision that like the videos of an automatic hammer (press-like) gone crazy and hitting the anvil frantically before it is powered off. You are witnessing the incident looking up at the hammer and down at the anvil.– WoJCommented Jul 27 at 10:16
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1This is a good answer and I don't feel the need to submit another, but another aspect: Many journals today (at least in my field, which is biology/ecology) want specific statements about exactly what each author contributed. Such contributions can include things like "mentorship", "provided lab resources", and "procured funding", which it sounds plausible that the other PI may have done. It can be a bit more palatable to include people who you don't feel like contributed very much if their (lack of) contribution is clearly spelled out.– brendanCommented Jul 28 at 10:42
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@brendan: I think the possibility of a contributions paragraph is worth its own answer and took the liberty to add it. Commented Jul 28 at 11:18
I think that the answer by Buffy is correct in saying that as a PhD student, this is probably something that your PI should deal with, not you. And he should make it clear that whatever decision is being made, it is coming from him.
On a more general note, including coauthors on papers costs you nothing but can save you significant pain and can mean a lot to the person receiving the credit. If I am unsure one way or the other then I tend to add them. If you don't approve, then the best course of action is to not work with them again. They soon get a reputation for trying to get credit that is not due and eventually nobody wants to work with them.
I have been on the periphery of a situation where someone complained to a journal that they should have been on a paper. The result was that after prolonged discussions the journal simply said they did not want to be involved and they refused to publish - everyone lost. The two groups involved no longer work with each other. While the people in the same group as me thought they were right, the people in the other group probably thought the same, so I am not claiming we were correct. Just that it is clear that the two groups' differing views make it hard to work together.
Summary: I recommend to include a contributions paragraph, and let that take care of the situation.
- Gift authorship exists and is a problem
- I've also seen (in particular, but not only) PhD students who I'd say really underestimated how much intellectual input they got from supervisors e.g. asking important questions after seminar presentations.
Thus, I think
- it is impossible for strangers on the internet to judge here whether authorship is warranted or not
- it quite likely that someone from a different institute may also not be in a position to judge this correctly
- it is best to apply strategies here that can cope with rather large error in the judgement.
(On the practical consequences of fighting co-authorship I fully agree with @Buffy)
As @Brendan commented, many journals nowadays ask for contributions of the authors being listed. This is a reaction to the existing problem of gift authorship.
But even if that is not the case for your manuscript, you can include such a section, just like you include Acknowledgements where you list funding and the HPC ressources. By describing the contributions there, you either learn that more took place than you were aware of, let the journal editors handle this the way they like to run their journal - or at least allow the readers of the paper to draw their own conclusions.
(I may add that I once had an editorial decision based on the listed contribution that upgraded me to co-first author.)
The other PI should not be included as a coauthor, but his/her grant should be acknowledged if the student was supported that way.
