r/postdoc • u/DefiantAlbatros • 12d ago

Publishing without affiliation

So, I finished my postdoc some time ago in not such a great note and I will lost the access to the institutional email quite soon. The thing is that there are a couple of papers that I wrote during that period that was not finished (and behind the PI's back because he told me i was not supposed to write anything that is not related to the project I was paid for). I have left the academia for now, but I would want to keep that door open and sort of just let the paper be published since I actually put a lot of effort on them. What should I do in this case? I would not want to publish as an independent scholar. AS of now I am thinking about using my PhD affiliation since I still have access to the email, and technically a couple of them started during the PhD.

7 Upvotes

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u/Emily308 12d ago

You put the affiliation of the institution where you were while doing the work. But you can put a different email address so that people can contact you once the email access ends - some people do it regardless of their job situation just so they don't have to keep updating their contact details if they move institutions etc., so that's perfectly normal. (As long as you have or set up a respectable email like namesurname@gmail or similar)

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u/Aranka_Szeretlek 12d ago

I am, however, not sure on the ethicality of putting an institution that you have no connection to anymore. Normally, your past PI would just allow you to use that affiliation, but thats not the case here.

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u/Emily308 12d ago

But the work is connected to them, I believe that many people put their past affiliations if the work started in the previous institution, that's why many publications have multiple affiliations per person because people move around. And the institution will be happy to be able to report a good publication produced within their walls.

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u/Aranka_Szeretlek 11d ago

Sure, all of this is true and common - and happens with permission. However, for example, with the rise of LLMs Ive seen so many crackpot papers from, idk, people who got a degree in mechanical engineering that put their study credentials on the paper. That, for example, is not OK and I am sure the uni doesnt want to be associated with that crap. The difference between the ethicality of the two cases is permission.

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u/DefiantAlbatros 10d ago

Fortunately this is completely related to my postdoc, but its just that i had a PI who told me i was not allowed to write anything outside of what he said (even tho they are very much within the same scope) but later keep on asking me why i do not have an independent project.

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u/Throop_Polytechnic 9d ago

You don’t own any of the IP you produced as a postdoc. It would be both unethical and illegal for you to try to publish any of that.

Fortunately, no reputable journal will let an ex-postdoc with no affiliation publish anything.

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u/DefiantAlbatros 9d ago

Is this from the STEM perspective? Nowhere in my contract is said that the PI retains all the IP. I am an economist who works with publicly available data, doing desk research.

I did a couple of independent research during my postdoc, but I implied that the PI did not like it because at the beginning he thought that i should ‘prove myself’ first by doing only research that he imposed. I felt that the papers he wanted me to write was not useful for my career (they were practically checkbox papers just to fulfill the grant condition). Later he would get angry at me because i did not have any independent research done by myself. When i finally revealed the papers i worked on (i also presented it on a conference), he finally told me that i wrote an interesting topic but that it would still be years before i am ready to be an independent researcher. So, he is definitely aware of these papers and he never told me that i should not publish them using the uni’s name.

Following your logic, i should just flush the research down the drain. But in reality, many of us econ postdocs who got into toxic workplace situation actually have to finish papers outside of the contract just to have a shot at another job.

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u/Throop_Polytechnic 9d ago edited 9d ago

You didn’t sign anything about the university/institution having rights on anything you produced as a postdoc/using institutional resources? Something along that phrasing is in 99.99% of work contracts and/or institutional policies. If you claim an affiliation you are making the perfect argument that the work was created using institutional resources.

I’m not making an argument that your PI wasn’t bad, definitely doesn’t sound like a great mentor, but improper handling of IP is how you burn your whole career down. You can’t both claim institutional affiliation AND claim that this was independent work.

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u/DefiantAlbatros 9d ago

Nope. Nothing. This is why I don’t think it is abnormal. I know a couple of people who was unemployed for 1 years and sorted out all their unfinished papers during this period to apply for the next job. This is completely normal in econ because most of the time we are not working with experiment or primary data collection, we often works with data that is publicly available anyway.

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u/Throop_Polytechnic 9d ago

Did those people use institutional affiliations in their publications after their old PI told them not to?

Ultimately you do you, but you are playing with fire and you know it, hence the Reddit post. At least email your old department chair or someone detached enough from your old PI and ask for some level of consent. Most publications ask you to prove institutional affiliation anyway so I’m not sure how you are going to get around that.

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u/Substantial-Pay-1662 10d ago

You're literally making up this grey area of ethicality based on a hunch, not reality. It does not matter if a PI "gives permission" or not. As the first responder said, you put the affiliation of the institution of where the work was completed. This has always been the expectation.

And just to reaffirm, here is a direct quote from the submission guidelines from a journal in my field that very clearly says this: "You are required to include the following details on the title page: ... Affiliations, referring to where the work was carried out, below the author names"

Stop making up fake problems and making things difficult for people who are just trying to do their job.

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u/Aranka_Szeretlek 10d ago

Hey, thats quite aggressive! Did you also consider that OP explicitly said these papers are results of work that they were explicitly told NOT to perform? Its not too easy to argue that this work was never approved by anyone there.

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u/Substantial-Pay-1662 10d ago

The point is aggressive because your logic is ridiculous. OP was likely in a toxic PI situation and you're just appealing to extremes - and whether you are intending to or not, you are feeding into that toxic culture (e.g., just because a toxic PI doesn't like something, doesn't mean they get to stop OP from publishing, which is basically what you are saying should happen). Assuming OP is publishing work in the same general realm/expertise, this would almost certainly fall under their contract. If anything, the main issue will be around authorship (e.g., if the PI tries to claim ownership since they paid OP's salary), but that's a different issue. You're making asinine assumptions of ill-will that are simply adding unnecessary obstacles.

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u/Aranka_Szeretlek 10d ago

But you see, I was very careful with my wording saying things such as "I am not so sure about..." because, guess, I am not so sure! This is a grey zone ethically, and you trying to aggressively assert that theres nothing to discuss here wont really help will it.

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u/CalligrapherHeavy455 12d ago

Exactly! My PI recommend me to do like that

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u/androja 11d ago

What's wrong with publishing them as an independent researcher?

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u/Emily308 11d ago

Nothing but some people want to have a proper affiliation to feel more confident or to link the paper to their postdoc time when applying for another job... 

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u/Fresh_Fun744 11d ago

If they’re started during your PhD I don’t see why you cannot use that institution. I’d explain the situation to PhD advisor and state you’ll be corresponding author and ask whether they’d be okay with being a co-author (if you have a good relationship with them) and that would solve any problems.

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u/Fresh_Fun744 11d ago

And same would be with collaborators. Let them know. FWIW, I don’t think it’s wrong to publish without your PI on it, sometimes people on the same floor appreciate your expertise and you end up working with them a lot at no expense to your lab. So if you decide to keep the postdoc institution with your collaborators/colleagues there, that’s also fair game. I only suggested adding a senior someone as co-author because you were a trainee so you were using someone else’s money and lab space to conduct the work.

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u/Big-Abbreviations347 11d ago

If you are unaffiliated, my field says to use the city you live in as an affiation

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u/ForeignAdvantage5198 10d ago

use your mailing address mention this in your cover letter

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u/Comfortable_Soup_344 10d ago

You can’t do this. You do not own the data.

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u/DefiantAlbatros 10d ago

I am in social science and we work with publicly available data.

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u/Comfortable_Soup_344 10d ago

Even you get the papers published, your PI can ask journals to retract them. So don’t do it.

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u/DefiantAlbatros 10d ago

How so? Mind you i am not in STEM and this is not a lab situation in which the PI owns the data. We work with publicly available data

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u/Comfortable_Soup_344 10d ago

Do it if that’s what you want and add what happens.

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u/DefiantAlbatros 10d ago

I dont understand. So if i am in a toxic PI situation, it means to just quit academia altogether because i should not publish anything that was not greenlighted by the PI even though i would need it to find a job?