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Last year, I applied to a university which is in Europe so a research statement is a crucial part of the application. I was interviewed by two faculty members and then finally got a rejection letter.

In my research statement, I had a particular idea and described a roadmap for it, though I did not get into technical details. But the idea was there and clearly stated. Recently, I came across a publication where the title is the same as my idea (wording is a little bit different) and is co-authored by one of the members of the interview panel.

The publication has technical details which were not part of my research statement.
I believe there is no clear proof here whether my ideas got used or not.

My questions are:

  • Is this suspicious?
  • Is this valid and acceptable?
Wrzlprmft
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seteropere
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    Definitely bad form. – Dave Clarke Dec 13 '12 at 21:05
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    Can you contact the department chair, who is likely to have access to your admission materials? Taking this kind of thing lying down would only encourage this further IMHO... – TCSGrad Dec 13 '12 at 21:07
  • @TCSGrad very nice thought. But since we are working on very closely related fields, isn't it possible for the faculty member to say he was thinking about it even before I applied. i'm just thinking here :-) – seteropere Dec 13 '12 at 21:13
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    No, but that would serve as a warning flag, even if he got away - the chair would be unlikely to forget, and pass off a second incident as "coincidence"! – TCSGrad Dec 13 '12 at 21:21
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    @TCSGrad I think you could turn that into an answer. – gerrit Dec 13 '12 at 21:32
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    It's unclear anything would come of reporting to the chair though, since these things are very hard to verify. And why would the chair even take your word for it ? – Suresh Dec 13 '12 at 21:58
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    @Suresh - Well, the chair can (and should IMO) look at the admissions material left with the department - if there's a strong correlation (e.g - the abstract of the paper is lifted from the statement of research he submitted), there's strong evidence of unfair play! – TCSGrad Dec 13 '12 at 22:12
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    But the OP says "there is no clear proof where whether my ideas got used or not". That in itself warrants some caution. – Suresh Dec 13 '12 at 23:23
  • Ideas are dime a dozen, also being in the same field, it is possible for people to have similar ideas. – Herman Toothrot Nov 26 '17 at 15:23
  • Tread carefully. It is very possible that they lifted the idea from you. However, be aware that it is very difficult to prove that unless you have a publication. Also, keep in mind that people are smart - they may have come to the same conclusion independently. Or else, you mentioned a few ideas, and these people are so good they can work them out (extreme case: John von Neumann would do that a lot). It is difficult to prove - but in future, tread carefully with ideas that are worthwhile until you have strong allies on your side. And no, good ideas are not necessarily dime a dozen. – Captain Emacs Jan 28 '20 at 21:10

3 Answers3

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There is of course the possibility that the person you've accused actually had the same idea independently. It's certainly suspicious, the moreso if when you were interviewed that person did not say "I like your idea and have actually been working on something similar". I agree with the suggestion that you contact the chair and raise the issue, but be polite and nonconfrontational about it. If you say "I think this guy stole my idea" it could be less effective than "I came across something similar to what I had proposed ... since Prof X didn't indicate he was working on this, I found it interesting that he published something so similar to what I proposed."

The thing to keep in mind is that it is a very gray area... this person might have come across your idea, forgotten about it, and later decided to pursue this idea without actually being consciously aware the idea came from your proposal. And, you say much of the work goes beyond what you actually proposed. So I think the chair should be informed, but I wouldn't expect much to come of it unless he's known as a repeat offender.

Fred Douglis
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    I found it interesting that he published something so similar to what I proposed does not sound non-confrontational to me, rather passively aggressive. Which may be a justified response actually.

     – Dmitry Savostyanov Jan 28 '20 at 20:55
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Contact the department chair, with a well-documented chain of events, and ask him to verify using the admission materials you ahd submitted to the department prior to the interview. Even if the plagiarist got away this time, he would know that he/she could not pull it off again, as people around him/her had gotten to know of this - and no one would want to work with someone who can potentially steal your ideas, right?

TCSGrad
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The other answers (at this time) all take at face value that plagiarism likely or potentially occurred.

While it may have, before pursuing a line of action predicated on this, I would as dispassionately as possible ask an Occam's Razor question:

Is the timeline -- your application/interview, time to perform the research, time to write it up, peer review, publication -- such that your contributions are likely to have played a significant role?

By all means pursue it if there was likely misbehaviour here. But accusations of plagiarism in the style of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobachevsky_(song) won't win you friends in the field -- or future potential collaborators -- if it turns out your idea was fermenting in many people's minds, and active research programs, for some time. And it depends on field and topic of course, but your statement your interview was "last year" sets off alarm bells for me a bit, because that would be a very short timeline (in my field at least) for something truly significantly influenced by it to show up in print.

Good luck and sympathies regardless!

Houska
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