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Very recently, a paper has been published that says:

I plan to incorporate X into my research in the future.

The aforementioned paper was published recently, so the follow up containing X is not published (nor do I know if the author is working on it right now). Would it be OK for me to then to do the research suggested in the paper? The idea to incorporate X into the research was an idea I developed independently, but it also happened to be in the "future work" of another paper, if that makes any difference.

3michelin
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2 Answers2

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There is no "calling dibs" in academic science.

In some cases, it may be risky/unwise to start a research program that is very similar to what someone else is working on, especially if they've already published in the area and you have not, but that is simply because they likely have a head start and you are at high risk of being scooped if they publish before you.

Otherwise, if you've completed work relevant to someone's suggestion for future work, that's great. They may have chosen not to pursue it for numerous reasons, so it would be a big problem if simply mentioning it barred others from pursuing a particular avenue. It's probably appropriate to cite their suggestion if you are aware of it, even if it wasn't initially motivated by that source.

Bryan Krause
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    Looks like I posted the identical answer, even right down to the word "dibs." – Vladhagen Sep 03 '20 at 16:26
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    @Vladhagen Haha, I know. Beat you by about 15 seconds I think ;) Incredibly matched. "No dibs, you should cite, be wary of overlap". – Bryan Krause Sep 03 '20 at 16:27
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    I guess that just shows that the answer is a good one. – Vladhagen Sep 03 '20 at 16:33
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    There is one situation where you should be careful, which is if you have reason to believe the person who wrote the paper or one of their close collaborators has a PhD student working on the problem for their dissertation. While it's true that no one owns a problem, scooping a grad student is considered not nice. – Alexander Woo Sep 03 '20 at 19:35
  • @AlexanderWoo Especially if the impression could be created that it was scooped in response to the existing paper (it might come down to show that the idea was obtained independently, that might have to be emphasized). – Captain Emacs Sep 03 '20 at 20:46
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I have never really heard of someone calling "dibs" on research. You cannot reserve a topic broadly in the academic community and expect no one else to publish on it.

Naturally, you should credit the original paper. Most all research builds incrementally on other's work. You can and should cite the prior works.

The only issue with this might be the singularity of the topic. For example, if the original work said that they were going to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, your proof might not be that meaningful if you publish it one week after they do.

Vladhagen
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