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A person I know was in the process of publishing her first manuscript when her supervisor told her to add his newly acquired affiliation from a university in Saudi Arabia to his name. The Saudi Arabian university hired this Supervisor as guest faculty and were essentially paying him for adding them as one of the affiliated universities in all the forthcoming manuscripts.

This was of major ethical concern to my acquaintance. In recent years, Saudi universities have been accused in multiple different prominent articles of "buying rankings" by paying prominent faculty to list them as an affiliation, even though the faculty have little real interaction with the university. To many, this looks like simple bribery or unethical sale of reputation, particularly give the high sums of money involved.

My acquaintance was concerned that, if her advisor was listing this affiliation on her paper, then she would be aiding and abetting in this unethical behavior. Unfortunately, her confrontation with her advisor went badly, and although she was able to publish the paper without the questionable affiliation, the relationship was destroyed and she ended up resigning the laboratory under pressure.

Now my question is this: what should a junior researcher do when they feel they are being asked to be party to "affiliation fraud" of this sort? We would not ask a person to remain silent if they thought a co-author was being unethically added or removed. Should unethical addition or removal of an affiliation be treated the same way?

henning
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Saurabh
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    It didn't became the affiliation of the student, it was of the supervisor only but now the supervisor wanted to list both his German as well as Saudi Arabian affiliation in the paper. What this would have implied was that paper would belong to both universities, would also had given a wrong impression to readers that the work was carried out in both universities and moreover, the concern of Ms X was that she was feeling that her supervisor tried to sell out her work without her permission or knowledge. – Saurabh Jun 20 '15 at 05:28
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    Listing a university affiliation does not imply any level of support or convey any ownership of the project. It is like giving an alternate address. Therefore a coauthor objecting to a university affiliation is irregular and sounds like a lot of worry over something that is not the coauthor's business. Getting paid to list what amounts to alternate contact information is also weird. If the faculty member is not spending any time in residence at the Saudi Arabian university then it begins to seem problematic. But...why would a student quit her PhD over this: why is it a problem for her? – Pete L. Clark Jun 20 '15 at 05:44
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    Did the professor want to make it look as though the student were affiliated with the Saudi university, or just reflect his own affiliations? – Patricia Shanahan Jun 20 '15 at 06:46
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    While this is rather questionable ethics by the advisor, the student (or any collaborator) shouldn't really need to care what somebody else mentions as affiliation on a paper. I honestly believe the student overreacted. (of course the question remains how great the relationship was to start with if such a tiny thing can destroy it completely) – xLeitix Jun 20 '15 at 07:52
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    without trying to go into too much discussion... it seems to me like this question is not so opinion based. What would the response be if a student decided to make his/her own affiliation on a paper and the professor did not agree. Is there a previous question along these lines... if someone wants their affiliation to be 'the religion of the spaghetti monster', do co-authors have any say – user-2147482637 Jun 20 '15 at 08:04
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    Exactly what @xLeitix and pete said. The professor had the right to state his desired affiliation and it is none of the student's business. The affiliation never implies where the work actually took place (it is 2015, we have emails and skype for god's sake) only what grant pays for the person's research. And what did the student do? Refused to state the desired affiliation of the professor in the journal (this is a major mistake for any co-author) and fought over it with a senior staff of the university (why?). I think the supervisor is 100% right in this case. – Alexandros Jun 20 '15 at 08:08
  • A related question was asked on this site before: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/41684/19607 – Kimball Jun 20 '15 at 12:41
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    @jakebeal I fee that the part that the OP was able to publish the paper without the questionable affiliation with the help of another senior professor is paramount to why the advisor / advisee relationship was broken. It is one thing for two people to have a disagreement and another when external parties are involved. – Alexandros Jun 20 '15 at 12:41
  • @Alexandros My interpretation of the question was that the key question was not about the process of the dispute per se, but about the ethical question that caused the dispute. – jakebeal Jun 20 '15 at 12:45
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    @Alexandros, so if the professor wants to put "University of the Moon" as their affiliation, the junior researcher has to roll over and take it? There's more to affiliation than just an address. The university in question may trumpet this work (press release), claim the the professor as their own, etc. This will reflect on all the authors. If one of the coauthors knows this is fraudulent, then they have a responsibility to prevent it. If the affiliation is gray and the coauthor can't defend it, it might be worth fighting over. Especially for a practice that's been in the news. – Bill Barth Jun 20 '15 at 13:03
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    This is what counts as an "unethical" affiliation? When I read the title I thought it was going to be a proposed affiliation with an ISIS or Al-Qaedea subgroup: not a university who was basically retaining a consultant on the staff list. Really, the student needs to get over herself. Imagine if she worked for a private company. – Calchas Jun 20 '15 at 13:08
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    @Calchas, some people are particularly sensitive to Saudi Arabia's approach to government and might not like to have their paper associated with a university there. The junior researcher might have refused the project entirely had they known of the affiliation. To add it at the end of the publication process might have been too much. It's not a hill that I would die on, but for some this country has many unacceptable practices that they might choose to distance themselves from. – Bill Barth Jun 20 '15 at 13:17
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    @BillBarth I am not sure why you want to spin this as the prof. being unreasonably pushy. I am not even sure this has to do with rank - if an equally ranked co-author would want to tell me what university I can or cannot use based on her/his own ethics, I would not be pleased either. And if she/he is particularly annoying about it, I may not want to publish with her/him in the future. Which seems to be exactly what happened here. – xLeitix Jun 20 '15 at 13:17
  • @xLeitix, the words "junior professor" came from the question. I would treat the approach exactly the same for folks of equal rank. There's no spin on my part here, and you're reading too much into nothing. People choose not to work for oil and pharma companies all the time, so I can see how particular governments might also be an issue. That's all. Since the timing appears to have been a late addition, I can only assume that the junior researcher was concerned about citation buying from a place they find objectionable. – Bill Barth Jun 20 '15 at 13:25
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    @BillBarth Then the cost of having that kind of ethical standard is to withdraw from the collaboration and desist in publishing the paper. That's fine, ethics would be worthless if they had no cost, I think. But certainly I cannot insist that the other author breach either his contractual arrangement or indeed his own view on where he is affiliated merely because I am unhappy with his arrangement. – Calchas Jun 20 '15 at 13:26
  • @Calchas, seems like a fine approach to me. Why don't you put that in your answer! – Bill Barth Jun 20 '15 at 13:28
  • @Calchas I agree. That sounds like a great, well-reasoned answer. – xLeitix Jun 20 '15 at 13:38
  • @Calchas when you say 'withdraw', then who gets to publish the material under their name? the supervisor? the junior researcher? neither? both of them, separately? What if that gets them into double-submission scenario? Do they race each other to submit separately? And does it matter which of them did most of the work, and whether it was 90/10 one of them, or 40/60 the other? – smci Jun 20 '15 at 20:34
  • @smci I mean neither. If you your coworker was funded by such an ethically unacceptable organisation the entire work is tainted. – Calchas Jun 20 '15 at 20:55
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    @Calchas I think compelling her to throw away all her work unpublished plus torpedoing her first publication merely due to his behavior is utterly unreasonable and unethical. Seems more reasonable that she would tell him in writing she's withdrawing consent to him as coauthor due to this reason, and simultaneously inform her department head (and possibly higher levels of the escalation chain) of his behavior, and let them know she intended to submit without his name by unless the situation was resolved. Seems like the solution to me. – smci Jun 20 '15 at 21:09
  • @smci I am being slightly frivolous. But, I don't see any compulsion, merely the co-author wishes to have his affiliations properly listed. Every journal of which I am aware requires that every person who contributed to the science of the paper be allowed the opportunity to be an author, with the appropriate affiliation, and to submit without such an author would be considered plagiarism. – Calchas Jun 20 '15 at 21:19
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    @Calchas: right, it seems the dispute comes down to whether or not it is "appropriate affiliation" to list a university that has waited until after you have work ready to publish and then offered you a cash sum in return for stating affiliation with them. Although, as Pete points out, it's not a straight case of a commercial endorsement, since they might well offer you a PO box in addition to the cash. – Steve Jessop Jun 21 '15 at 15:48
  • As OP mentions in a comment that the "home" university is in Germany, I'd like to add a peculiar point wrt Germany in this situation. A German professor is a public offical, so if they take a guest professorship the Land (= owner of the university) has to endorse that. If the supervisor is not a professor, still their employer = the university has to endorse that (it's not so easy for them to refuse, they'd need to show "good reasons"). In any case, this means that the student can in good faith assume the relationship with the other university was considered OK by their universitry.... – cbeleites unhappy with SX Jul 22 '19 at 06:58
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    ... which IMHO means that the conclusion that there is a fraudulent affiliation needs considerably more substance. – cbeleites unhappy with SX Jul 22 '19 at 07:00

6 Answers6

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To my mind, this case is very similar to the question of whether somebody can essentially pay for co-authorship. We see many questions of this sort on this site, a particular apropos example of which is this one, which asks in part:

Suppose I'm a billionaire who knows nothing about science, but I take it into my head that I want to be (regarded as) a famous scientist.

The case of the Saudi Arabian affiliations looks to me very much like a parallel construct:

Suppose I'm a billionaire institution which does little significant research, but I take it into my head that I want to be (regarded as) a famous institution.

I think that it is completely reasonable to find this problematic, and to object to a co-author adding this institution, just as one might object to a co-author adding the billionaire know-nothing as another author.

Now the question is what to do about it, and, as in these authorship questions, the advice tends to depend strongly on the power dynamics of the situation. On this site, we often advise students to leave bad situations rather than creating a confrontation, due to the power imbalance with faculty. For people in positions of power, however, like tenured faculty, it is an effective endorsement of unethical behavior if you are aware of it and do not call it out. It may not be a hill to die on, but either you care enough to make your voice heard or else you accept the behavior as legitimate.

In this particular case, the student may have acted unwisely with regards to safeguarding their own future, but it may also have been important enough to them to take that ethical stand. It's impossible for us to know how important it was to that person, and it's easy to engage in post-facto critique of their tactics, but I think the concern is legitimate and the actions taken are within the range of reasonable options, depending on how strongly the student felt about the ethics involved.

In short: some people choose not to take military money, not to work on espionage-related research, or not to publish in non-open journals. Choosing not to be party to what you perceive as bribery for prestige is just as legitimate an ethical choice to make.

jakebeal
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    It seems to me a related issue is when famous researchers get added to a lesser-known university's faculty for a sizable salary and in return they do very little other than show up to give some talks once a year (or not even that). All this can be considered "gray area" but somehow people typically only get upset when it is done blatantly rather than wink-nudge style. – Chan-Ho Suh Jun 20 '15 at 18:53
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    Playing devil's advocate, there is little difference between a university that pays you only to do research and a funding agency. – Federico Poloni Aug 03 '18 at 10:27
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    @FedericoPoloni: one may argue that the funding agency doesn't get listed as affiliation. But: it is quite normal for research institutions to pay one for just doing research. And depending on the topic of that research, doing this remotely can also be quite normal. – cbeleites unhappy with SX Jul 22 '19 at 07:14
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One unwritten rule of any scientific collaboration between co-authors is that each party should trust the other. If I collaborate on one paper with another scientist (who might be located in another part of the world) and he is affiliated with more than one institutions (e.g., a university and a research institute or a second university while on sabbatical) and tells me that he likes his affiliation on this specific paper to be "Institute A" or "Institute B" I trust that he is doing the right thing. When he wants me to add an acknowledgement about a specific grant, I put the acknowledgement he wants for HIS part and I put the acknowledgement for my grant that I want. I have never felt the need to question neither the grant acknowledgement or the affiliation of another collaborator. For me, it is always a matter of trust. I do not collaborate with people I do not trust and I trust the people I collaborate with.

On my CS domain, where conferences are the main publishing venue, sometimes the affiliation or the grant explicitly written on a paper, sometimes corresponds to who or how the trip expenses of the suggested paper will be covered. In those cases, the author may have prior discussed this with the administrative division of his institute and only follows the provided instructions. Again, I have never thought of any of this as a big deal, because it is more of a administrative technicality than a real issue.

As far as the OP original question, her advisor wanted to list both affiliations (not just the "shady" one). In my mind, this was really not a big thing. Instead the OP by escalating this issue, was basically forced to resign from her PhD. And all this for what? So that a small obscure university has one less citation? It makes no sense and there are much more important ethical fights that is worth fighting for within Academia.

It would be a whole different story though, if the OP was forced to put another affiliation for herself. In that case, she should have a saying on which is her preferred affiliation. But fighting for the listed affiliation on another co-author makes absolutely no sense to me.

Alexandros
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  • Some of this answer addresses parts of the question that have now been removed or at least veiled. It might be best to edit them out. – Bill Barth Jun 20 '15 at 13:28
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I'm going to disagree with the other answers. In particular, I don't think it is similar to buying authorship at all.

Listing someone as a coauthor means their contribution was to do some of the work, so listing someone who merely paid you is unethical, because it misrepresents their contribution. But listing an institution as an affiliation normally means that you are paid by that institution.

So far as I can see, the only problem would be if the supervisor's German institution felt that they were paying for exclusive affiliation rights. But that would be a matter between them and him.

Especially Lime
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Withdraw from the collaboration.

Certainly, she cannot insist that the other author breach his contractual arrangement or indeed disregard his own reasonable view on where he is affiliated merely because she is unhappy in how the affiliation arose.

If his view on where he was affiliated was essentially a fiction of his own invention, I think, it would be reasonable to take a robust position against perpetuating a fiction or a fraud. But that is not, from what I understand of the question, what has happened here. If he is paid by the university in some academic capacity related to the paper, for whatever reason and for whatever work is delivered, then I believe he is entitled to assert that he is "affiliated" with that university when publishing the paper. And the university may well require him to make that assertion. It is no less reasonable than a grant body asking to be acknowledged when work is produced from a grant.

If that is too much for her to tolerate, then the cost of having that kind of ethical standard is to withdraw from the collaboration and desist in publishing the paper: ethics would be worthless if they had no cost to their subscribers.

I have to add, when I read the title I thought the question would concern a proposed affiliation with an ISIS or Al-Qaedea subgroup, or at least with a supplier of arms technology to a capricious dictator.

Frankly, to get upset that a university in a developing country has to promote itself against the entrenched western universities by retaining (effectively) a consultant on their payroll, is bordering on the absurd. There are many problems in the world and many problems in academia. Saudi Arabia throwing some money at a small number of professors is not one of them.

Calchas
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    For some, it's not just some random developing country. As such, I think the ethics of not wanting your work associated with Saudi Arabia are defensible. For some people, this country's approach to religious rules and questions of gender are too far to one end of the spectrum to want to be associated with them in any way. Others take a view that interactions with more liberal countries may be liberalizing, but not everyone takes this view. Labeling these strong moral positions as absurd is itself a moral position, and doesn't really enhance your answer. – Bill Barth Jun 20 '15 at 13:59
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    @BillBarth I'm not taking a position about affiliating with Saudi Arabia as a country nor discussing at any point the integrity of the country's political system. I'm taking a position about someone saying "a university is not well known so it is not entitled to hire good people to improve its reputation". :) – Calchas Jun 20 '15 at 14:16
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    Yeah, but as it appears here, if the work is done and a university comes along and says "Here's some money, start adding me to your papers including anything you submit to day," that might be problematic. If the arrangement was made ahead of the work, then I see no problem. There's some gray area here. Who should I list when I move institutions in the middle of the project? Etc. Etc. – Bill Barth Jun 20 '15 at 14:19
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    @BillBarth That's a separate point to the "Saudi Arabia is immoral" question. But my argument is that the determination of that grey area is made by the author who is or would be affiliated with the institution, not by anyone else. Other people on the paper might disagree with the determination, but ultimately it is not for them to decide. (In my view.) – Calchas Jun 20 '15 at 14:21
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    I can't 100% agree, but I do agree with you that the right approach is to withdraw if you are opposed to this kind of citation buying through affiliation. This whole "it's nobody else's business who I affiliate with" position is not so absolute to me. Everyone's name is on the paper, and so any ethical issues associated with the paper will fall on all the authors to some measure. – Bill Barth Jun 20 '15 at 14:28
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    @BillBarth Perhaps then it comes down to the trust approach expressed in Alexandros's answer! – Calchas Jun 20 '15 at 14:30
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Bill Barth Jun 20 '15 at 14:30
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    The affiliation seems genuine based on the "guest faculty" contract. Failing to list it is a "lie of omission" and probably mildly unethical itself. If it "distorts rankings", it simply means that U.S. News and World Report is incompetent and unreliable. It is not a "corporate overlord" anyway. Find another advisor if you "don't like" it. – Abdul Ahad Aug 03 '18 at 16:20
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A contrarian view: in my opinion, every author is responsible for listing their own affiliations. If they do something unethical, as here, or some other wrong thing, e.g., forgetting to list one of their current legitimate affiliations, then I fail to see why the other authors would somehow held accountable. Indeed, sometimes a researcher can very legitimately end up co-authoring a paper where they have never even physically met some of the people involved in the collaboration. How could they be expected to check that they are listing their affiliations properly? In practice, I always trust my co-authors to list their affiliations, and I'm not going to go and start questioning what they do.

To me this is very different from adding, e.g., a bogus author to a paper. It's reasonable to expect that every author of a paper would know what each author contributed, and so if someone wants to unethically add someone who didn't contribute to the paper, the other authors should complain. (Although to some extent even this isn't so clear: if I end up contributing to a paper where a PhD student I have never met has listed their advisor as an author of the paper, can I reasonably ascertain if the advisor meets reasonable criteria for authorship? Probably not...)

In the present situation, I think it's a bit less clear, because the student thought they knew that the affiliation was indeed fraudulent. But in general, why would they care? Simply assume your co-author knows what they're doing, I'd say. If it's unethical, they should be the ones to bear the blame.

a3nm
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The main issue here could be with the university or institution which the co-author works for. It spends money not only for his or her salary, but also for the infrastructure and environment supporting the research; the expected return is, in part, in publications supporting its reputation. Depending on the country, it may be stated explicitly so in the work contract it issues.

Having a third partly spending considerably less money (and not alleviating at all the burden of the institution) to achieve the same effect is clearly a problem.

I would personally advise to raise the issue to the board (or equivalent) of the institution. They are the ones getting ripped off.

P-Gn
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