3

I am a PhD student in mathematical economics and had an interesting idea last month. I modelled my idea and wrote it down. For the moment, it is a preliminary draft but I think my idea is pretty interesting.

I would like to discuss my idea with some people in the field (researchers, professors, other PhD students etc.) with showing them the model in order to take their advices but I am afraid if some people can pick my idea. (I have already heard about this kind of unethical attitude in academia from my friends.)

As it is not a working paper yet, if somebody pick the idea and make a working paper before than me, I think I could do nothing than accepting the situation.

How to deal with this kind of issues ? The best way is to keep this preliminary model for me until the time that I put it as a working paper ?

optimal control
  • 3,714
  • 1
  • 23
  • 49
  • 6
    Well, surely you have an advisor, and surely you feel comfortable discussing the work with her? – Pete L. Clark Jun 15 '15 at 22:26
  • @Pete L. Clark Yes, I feel very comfortable with my advisor, he is a nice guy but I would like to have also different point of views on what I am trying to do. – optimal control Jun 15 '15 at 22:50
  • 10
    Good. When you feel like you've developed the idea enough to present it to anyone else, show it to your advisor and see what he says. One of the main things that advisors can help you with is to tell you which other people to contact to get help and information. – Pete L. Clark Jun 15 '15 at 23:20
  • 1
    Related questions: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1966/19607 http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/20833/19607 and http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/46619/19607 (the last is specifically about economics but currently unanswered) – Kimball Jun 16 '15 at 04:17

2 Answers2

3

Per Pete L Clark's comment:

When you feel like you've developed the idea enough to present it to anyone else, show it to your advisor and see what they say. One of the main things that advisors can help you with is to tell you which other people to contact to get help and information.

jakebeal
  • 187,714
  • 41
  • 655
  • 920
  • yes, but what should he/she do in case does not want to show it to the advisor? I think that is the point, to contact external "reviewers" – Open the way Jul 29 '15 at 06:07
1

Unfortunate to there that there is such misconducts in your field.

In general it is a very good idea to share your paper with someone else. Usually that only makes any research better. At times, PhD student may not receive the best advices from their advisor, because sometimes they may not see "the forest from the trees". In my own experience sharing research ideas and drafts with someone who is not directly into that topic usually leads to fresh ideas, comments and helps myself to think outside the box.

I think every researcher regardless of the level should aim to connect and network with different people in different disciplines in order to have reliably people around you and thus be able to easily discuss with research papers and ideas.

As said in the comments it is important to listen and take advices from your advisor, but I also recommend discussing with other people to get a different view.

Maybe you could leave some critical information out from your paper and then discuss of it in more theoretical level? Without all the critical information the risk of misconduct would be definitely smaller. Do you have contact outside your own discipline but still close to your topic? I see it very unlikely that they would copy your idea, since they do not have all the expertise in your topic. I also recommend discussing with your fellow PhD students. Again I see hardly any risk they would copy your idea. I am an optimist and yet would like to believe in collegiality. Most importantly, you would very unlikely lose anything else than just a short period of your personal time if your share ideas with your peers, even if they have anything relevant ideas.

arkiaamu
  • 375
  • 1
  • 5