What can I do when someone else is literally duplicating my PhD work? [closed]

Question

I finished my PhD last year. I published three papers and submitted another one, so 4 from my work covering most of my research so far.

this year, I am seeing another new PhD student (he started his PhD just after I finished mine) and he is doing the same work except for one parameter he changed. He's begun winning prizes (presentation prizes) with that, using the same context, the same methodology. He has not published anything yet, but it sounds cringe and annoying, why would you work on my research and replicate it almost fully and not even mention or reference my work anywhere?

This guy also tried to approach me once to get the code I've worked on for 3-4 years so that he could change it and use it for his sake. I did not give him anything. Is there anything I can do to make sure he does not replicate my work and get the credit for that?

Answer 1

Talk to him (and possibly his supervisor) about proper referencing

As is pointed out by others here, it is desirable for researchers to replicate and build on each other's work, and that is fine so long as there is proper attribution of sources using citation of previous work. Since you have already published your papers on this topic, this new student should be citing that work and explaining to his reader how his own work builds on your papers. This is part of the standard literature review that should be present in a paper/presentation.

You note that this student has not yet published any papers on this topic. If and when he does, he will be expected to cite your work and the journals reviewing those papers will want him to be clear about what his own research adds to that previous work (e.g., adding a new parameter in a model/analysis). It sounds like the present problem is with his presentations, which should also cite your work.

This issue should be reasonably simple to nip in the bud. Since this is a new PhD student, it is likely that he is a novice in academic practice and he might not be aware that presentations should also cite key work. A reasonable first action here would be to contact this student directly and talk to him about his presentations. Let him know that it is usual for academic presentations to include citations to relevant work and tell him that you would have expected his presentations to cite your relevant papers. You might also suggest to him that he seek some guidance from his supervisor on citation practices. If necessary, you could also raise this issue directly with his supervisor, who would be more than happy to give him appropriate guidance.

For these types of situations, I also recommend that you apply a variant of Hanlon's razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. Assume that you are dealing with a well-meaning researcher and begin by drawing the problem to their attention. Trust in the safeguards of academic practice but try to nip problems like this in the bud with a friendly conversation in the first instance.

Answer 2

Replicability is literally one of the cornerstones of science. I would consider others trying to replicate my results -- assuming of course that they properly cite my earlier work -- about as high an honor as a scientist can get from their peers. Imagine that nobody cared enough about your work to want to replicate it!

Answer 3

What do you mean by your research? do you mean it is not published yet? If it is published, no one should lose the freedom to do the research in the same direction just because s/he is from your former group.

If it is not published, why/how s/he know the methods or details you are using? If you are the one creating the methods, s/he is using your code, it is likely that you should at least be a co-author.

P.S. you seems very annoyed that this guy only change one parameter but getting many credit/prize. However sometime changing one important parameter do change everything. E.g. Superconductivity