Some time ago, I have send a paper for publication at a respected journal. The peer review took some time, and eventually the paper is in the production stage. The paper was submitted when we were working at a grant proposal. Some months ago, the grant proposal was accepted and currently we receive funding from the grant. Since the paper was submitted before the grant was active, the question would be if it is fine if we add acknowledgements at the proof stage for the current grant. I add that for dealing with the referees remarks, we have also worked at the paper, work that correspond to a time when the grant was active.
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2Unless I miss something, the situation is pretty clear: the research was done and the paper was written before the grant was accepted, I do not think it makes any sense to acknowledge the current grant.– PsySpCommented Mar 1, 2017 at 21:06
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1@PsySp I think in general I agree with you; however, the OP's question regards the time spent working on the paper under the new grant, so the situation isn't quite as clear. Maybe one could reword the question of how much support for a paper needs to come from a particular grant to justify an acknowledgement. >0%? 1%? 10%? 30%?– Bryan Krause ♦Commented Mar 1, 2017 at 22:54
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@BryanKrause OP says "The paper was submitted when we were working at a grant proposal." So 0% time was spent on the paper since the new grant started. However, the only way I can see around is if some revisions were done while working under the new grant. Then they could say this work was partially supported by such-and such– PsySpCommented Mar 1, 2017 at 23:09
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4@PsySp Last sentence of the OP: "I add that for dealing with the referees remarks, we have also worked at the paper, work that correspond to a time when the grant was active." In my opinion, it would depend on how substantial that work was. Responses to referees can be simple edits or sometimes require substantial new experiments.– Bryan Krause ♦Commented Mar 1, 2017 at 23:51
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2@BryanKrause I agree with you. If the revision included just corrections of typos then no ack would be required. But if the paper was revised in a major way (whatever this means) then I think the most appropriate is to write what I mentioned above.– PsySpCommented Mar 1, 2017 at 23:53
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1 Answer
I think you need to look deep within yourself and do some introspection about the reason why you are thinking of adding an acknowledgement.
If the reason is that you genuinely believe the work you did on the corrections to the paper was substantial enough that the grant agency truly deserves to be acknowledged for its support in making the paper come to a successful fruition -- sure, go ahead and add the acknowledgement. No need to overthink the issue.
But if on the other hand the reason is that you are essentially looking for an excuse to add an acknowledgement so that you can later list the paper in your final or periodical report to the funding agency -- perhaps due to a feeling of insecurity about your ability to produce more substantial work later on in the life of the grant for which you can add a more sincere acknowledgment -- in that case, no, sorry to disappoint but I think such an action would be borderline unethical (and in my personal opinion falling on the wrong side of the border, though not by much), and would also look quite ridiculous should anyone (e.g. the program director at the funding agency, or a panel reviewing a future grant application) later scrutinize your report about what you did for the grant.
answered Mar 2, 2017 at 0:59
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1What if your reason is "because the grant agency requires it"?– academicCommented May 15, 2019 at 17:11