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I submitted few manuscripts to some journals during my PhD and moved to other institute for postdoc (full-time) in few months before. Now one manuscript has come for revision and other manuscripts may come soon. I have following many questions in my mind.

I am wondering is it ethical to spend some time to make revision of my old manuscripts in holidays/weekends in my house without using any resources from Institute?

Should I need to discuss this matter to my present supervisor or Institute?

Should I acknowledge my present Institute? Is it also necessary to change my affiliation?

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    In addition to what's been said in the answers very few supervisors will mind you spending a little time during the working day on it, especially for things like communicating with your old group while they're in work.
    – Chris H
    Commented Nov 3, 2017 at 9:36
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    Talk to them. Personally, I've worked on revisions of publications from my previous job during working hours. My institute leader fully supported this. Obviously, I then included my current affiliation in the manuscript, which makes the paper "count" for the institute statistics.
    – user9482
    Commented Nov 3, 2017 at 9:55
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    What ethics do you feel are being challenged here?
    – Strawberry
    Commented Nov 3, 2017 at 13:23
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    I expect the post-docs in my group to spend time finishing up manuscripts from their graduate work, with their affiliation that of their university (with a 'current address' footnote). In return, I expect them to spend time on their next job finishing up manuscripts from the post-doc. I suspect your current advisor would like all their manuscripts treated as such.
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Nov 3, 2017 at 16:10

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Let's address your questions one by one.

I am wondering is it ethical to spend some time to make revision of my old manuscripts in holidays/weekends in my house without using any resources from Institute?

What you do on your free time is entirely up to you: no job, boss, or conditions, can take that away from you...

(Well, almost… as noted in comments, there can be clauses that limit your abilities to work on other projects, but I would think that the principal case in which it causes problem / conflicts of interest, is when that "side activity" is paid, which, I assume, is not your case.)

Should I need to discuss this matter to my present supervisor or Institute?

...yet, depending on the sensibilities and particular conditions of your employment, you may want to tell your supervisor. You don't have to make it super formal, as it is rather usual for a young post-doc to have ongoing work that follows publications made during the Ph.D. Just mention that you'll be working on some revisions on your free time, and that should be fine.

If your supervisor shows interest ("Great, you should make a presentation", "Tell me more", "What are the connections with our current project?"), you can try to make fruitful connections, but that may not arise.

Should I acknowledge my present Institute? Is it also necessary to change my affiliation?

I would think that this will depends on the country, institute, kind of supervisor, and many other aspects. Listing your former institution as the "main institute", and your current institute as your current address would probably be the safest option.

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    If the work was performed without resources of the new job, then the best way to address the affiliation is to use the old affiliation, and list the new address as a "Present address"-type footnote. Most journals routinely allow this.
    – aeismail
    Commented Nov 3, 2017 at 3:08
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    I would acknowledge the institution where the majority of the work was carried out, unless significant reworking was needed and this was done during 'work time' at a different workplace.
    – thomasfedb
    Commented Nov 3, 2017 at 7:00
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    "What you do on your free time is entirely up to you: no job, boss, or conditions, can take that away from you...". I don't think that's correct, or at least not universally. Most work contracts (and in some cases even legislation) include implicit or explicit non-compete clauses.
    – jcaron
    Commented Nov 3, 2017 at 13:33
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    @jcaron Yeah, was thinking about the same thing. In general a lot of those non compete clauses are unenforcable for the most part in most places around the world, but a contract can definitely limit what you can do in your free time.
    – David Mulder
    Commented Nov 3, 2017 at 13:37
  • @jcaron Good point. I edited my answer. I would think that non-complete clauses involves paid activities, but this might not universal either.
    – Clément
    Commented Nov 3, 2017 at 13:43
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This is one of those things about academia that likely varies across disciplines. The answer below pertains to norms in mathematics. (It might help if you provide more information about your discipline so people can give more accurate answers.)

In mathematics it is customary to sign any paper you write while employed at institution X as "[name of author], Institution X". The distinction between "personal time" and "work time" is essentially nonexistent in the context of paper authorship, nor is there any discussion of the physical location where the paper was written or whether work "resources" were used.

In your situation, as I said I would sign the paper with my name and current affiliation, and add in the acknowledgements a note along the lines of "Part of this work was done while the author was at Institution Y", where Y is the name of my old institution.

As for discussing your plans with your supervisor, yes, in mathematics it would be expected that you discuss such projects with them, at least to the same extent that they would generally expect you to discuss with them what you are working on (which is not necessarily a very high extent - postdoctoral researchers in mathematics are generally pretty free to work on what they want and there isn't a high expectation on the part of the supervisor that the researcher spend all their time on things that are directly useful to the supervisor). Again, the fact that the projects are continuations of things you started elsewhere or that you plan to work on them during time that you consider as "personal time" is immaterial to the question.

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If you do the revisions entirely in your free time without resources from your current job, then your official address should be the institute where you did the Ph.D. work. Your new address would be indicated as "current address." It would not be absolutely necessary to discuss the matter with your current supervisor, but it would be polite to do so.

If, on the other hand, you use work time or resources from your current job, then you should get your current supervisor's approval. I can't imagine a reasonable supervisor denying you this approval unless the revisions were so extensive and your work on your current project so urgent that you just can't spare any work time for the revisions. Assuming you get your supervisor's permission, you should either list your current institute as a second address (if the revisions were quite extensive, so that a substantial part of the paper resulted from work at your new address) or put a footnote on the first page indicating what part of the work was done at the new address (if that part was not so extensive).

I should add that I'm answering from the point of view of a mathematician in the U.S. (except for the part about "your work on your current project is so urgent ..." which is extremely unlikely in mathematics but can easily occur in a lab science where you're the one who keeps the lab functioning). Other fields and other countries might have different ideas of what's appropriate.

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