Suppose a person got PhD degree by properly submitting his/her thesis on a particular topic. Assume that neither the student nor the doctoral review committee including supervisor knows that the proposal is not a novel.
Later at some point of time if it comes to know that the student got PhD without any novelty. Then does the PhD degree get withdrawn?
It would be very rare for such a thing to happen. However, it might depend on the circumstances behind it. If it was nothing more than a misjudgment by the candidate and the committee or some missed (but relatively obscure) information that wasn't included, probably nothing would happen. People would just say "oh well..." and let it go.
However, if some misconduct occurred, such as hiding information or plagiarizing other work, then it could result in withdrawal. But then, it wouldn't be for lack of novelty, but for the misconduct.
Novelty is a judgement call in any case. Looked at in hindsight something may appear to be not-novel when, at the time, it was. Even at the same moment, different people might judge it differently.
If you are the candidate in question, I recommend that you rest easy. Likewise if you were the advisor.
No. While perhaps the committee erred by approving such a thesis, the decision would not be overturned. The same is true for novel work that is later found to have errors. Withdrawing a PhD is very rare, and typically only done in response to academic misconduct (or public relations problems...).
No. Retracting degrees after the fact is a grave undertaking. If there is no question of acting in bad faith it would be pretty unthinkable. Even if there was question of foul play, in practice it's very unlikely anything would happen.
Clearly for something severe enough this might be on the table but lacking novelty: no.
It's worth considering how difficult/unreasonable it would be to, ten years after the fact say, reassemble all of the relevant parties and revisit such a claim. And that's all it is, a claim. Especially with something nuanced like novelty, until the parties involved have made their cases and some fairly serious thought put in: it's just conjecture, upon which none would strip a degree. If it was simple, it wouldn't have been gotten wrong at the time.
No. A PhD is basically an apprenticeship in research in some field, and the thing that gets you your PhD is the demonstration that you have acquired the skills needed to be an independent (journeyman) researcher in that field. Ideas are constantly being reinvented again and again in many fields, so it often happens that you later discover that someone else has published the same idea. If your examiners were satisfied that you were sufficiently diligent in your literature review, then that is demonstrating that skill. We all miss something occiasionally.
I have never heard of this. It would probably require something really serious like discovering academic misconduct, forging data or plagiarism or similar.
NO, this is the responsibility of the supervisory committee. In fact, I was told a year or two after the fact that part of my dissertation had been worked out and put in a technical report at Bell Labs. The thought of retracting my degree didn't cross anyone's mind. In fact, it was evidence of significance. If I had concealed the report from my committee, it would have killed my letters of recommendation from my committee members, and generally damaged my professional reputation severely. But as a former director of a graduate program, I can tell you that faculty members would have little appetite to pursue the case, because it would be a BIG time sink with an uncertain outcome, and it could damage the committee members' reputations as well. On the other hand, if the PhD were a public figure and incident were already damaging the department's reputation due to exposure in the press, I suppose there might be some pressure to devote some attention to the case. In the US, the PhD would probably sue, and the university's lawyers would fold rather than litigate, in my estimation.
I know of a case where a person was awarded a Master's degree in math accidentally. He didn't pass his comprehensive exams and (I think) was short some course work. But someone in the graduate office screwed up and stamped a piece of paper with the wrong stamp. And the guy got a diploma. He didn't even know it until at least a year after.
But it was determined that he didn't cheat in anyway to cause this to happen, and he's got his degree. (Even though he couldn't integrate his way out of a wet paper bag.)
