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Is there a "statute of limitations" on plagiarism? After being accused in one course, can my work in past courses be re-examined?
Is there a "statute of limitations" on plagiarism? After being accused in one course, can my work in past courses be re-examined? I believe I unknowingly plagiarized in a past course.

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Actually, anyone reading your work can accuse you of plagiarism if it is noticed that you copy the ideas of others without attribution.
Ordering an investigation, however, is a different matter and would depend on local rules and customs. But universities like to protect their own reputation and so some "due diligence" is required. This would be especially true for graduate degrees, I'd expect.
But once you have been accused and not exonerated, then it would be natural for people to look for other instances. In a serious case, such as a thesis, you would bear considerable risk.
Edited to add: No, there isn't a time limit or statute of limitations. No statutes at all in most places. It is what it is unless corrected. If the work can be seen you can be accused. This is distinct, of course, from local disciplinary rules.

Whether or not there is a time limit depends on the policies of the particular institution. For example, at my institution, policy states I can't raise allegations of plagiarism more than three weeks later.

@MichaelMior, you are writing about local rules and what can be charged as a disciplinary matter, not plagiarism as a general academic offense. My view is broader.

@MichaelMior Wow, that seems an unacceptably short timeframe! I'd be tempted to not trust an undergraduate degree from an that has decided to self-impose such rules. It'd be like the IRS publicly declaring that it won't pursue any claims of tax fraud more than 3 weeks after the submission of your taxes...

@Buffy That's a fair point that I intended to express in my comment. But I think it's still worth noting that the policies of a particular institution may limit some of the consequences.

@user2705196 I agree with you that the time frame is very short. Especially when students are permitted to dispute their grades indefinitely.

@MichaelMior, yes, but for anything that might later appear outside the course/university context, there can be other, long term, consequences.

+1 Agree. As an example, at my university a finding of plagiarism in a single course can subject one's coursework in all courses to audit for plagiarism while one is matriculated.

Anyone might accuse you at any time, even decades or centuries past your death. However, the burden of the proof is to the accuser.
Accusing someone of plagiarism is a serious issue, and normally, the people who does the accusation have proofs sustaining the accusations.
Once accused, you are expected to defend from the accusation. If you are actually guilty, it is likely that there is nothing you can do to defend yourself and the best you can do is to apologize and recognize your error. However, the academia tends to be unforgiving and ban you forever from working on anything seriously even if you actually apologize.
If you are innocent, defending from a plagiarism accusation is hard. There are a lot of cases where innocent people had no real chance to defend themselves from unfair accusations of this type. What you should try to do is to prove that there was no plagiarism at all and that you properly quoted everyone you should quote, which is a very tiring, stressful and cumbersome process.
Sometimes, someone else plagiarized your work and the accuser thought it was the other way around. In this case, you should accuse that someone else as part of your defense.
Sometimes a defendant defends by counter-attacking and plays the "uno reversal card": The accuser is actually who is plagiarizing work! If the defendant is innocent, this is probably the case, but proofing it might be hard. If the defendant is guilty, this would be part of their strategy to steal other people work.
In cases of a work with several authors that is accused of plagiarism, this might create a serious issue as possibly, only one of the authors did the plagiarism and the others were simply trusting him. If the other authors aren't able to clear themselves, everyone would be considered guilty.
It seems that you previously plagiarized stuff as part of a work done in the context of a previous discipline. If you are a grad student and plagiarized due to not actually knowing how to properly quote stuff or as a result of a very sloppy work, the teacher, while still giving an F or a zero to your work, might then just choose to rub that under the rug. I once caught a student who made exactly that and what I told him was simply "quote all those things correctly and resubmit your work as soon as possible, otherwise there is no other grade than a zero", I also gave him a 10-minute informal lecture about how to properly quote stuff. He did fixed his work and resubmitted, which is a much better outcome than just ruining his academic life.

I don't think I'd agree with the "ban you forever from working" point... Plenty of undergrads do stupid things, learn from them, and have no hard feelings going forward. It's a different matter if you're an established researcher though

I disagree with "There are a lot of cases where innocent people had no real chance to defend themselves from unfair accusations of this type."

@ScottishTapWater If the name of the undergrad (or anyone else) ends up being publicly as a known plagiarizer, he/she is doomed and he/she might also doom the adviser and coworkers. That is precisely the main reason why most of such cases are handled very discretly within the context of the department of the undergrad with the problematic material being just silently deleted. Once the case becomes widely known, it is out of control and the damage might be irreparable.

@user2705196 Well, I already had heard about some cases, including here on academia.se. But since this is somewhat a taboo for all the involved people, it is hard to find material describing that. Further, this might depend on the type of the university. The best universities would have an established process with an actual investigation where the student have a fair chance to defend. The worst universities don't care at all about plagiarism. The problem lies in those in the middle tier, when it is just easier to concede to whatever accusation received than to do a proper investigation.

@VictorStafusa-BozoNaCadeia - It takes all of 2 hours to change your name, in the UK at least. I'd also be inclined to council anyone who condemns someone permanently for something they did when they were younger than 25 to give themselves a shake. It's worth remembering that the brain isn't fully developed until the mid to late 20s

@ScottishTapWater Not every country is UK. Where a live (Brazil) there are very few ways where you are allowed to change your name: (a) Getting married and adopting the surname of the husband or wife; (b) Getting divorced and reverting to your previous name; (c) Getting adopted as child; (d) Being registered by your parents with a ridiculous name and petitioning the justice to change it later; (e) Be a witness of a serious crime commited by a criminal organization and entering a government program to protect witnesses. - I.e. none of those are realisitic for people with academic problems.

@VictorStafusa-BozoNaCadeia - Sure, but then my next point would be most of acadaemia is centred on the US, Europe, and China. If you screw your reputation in Brazil, move, and chances are not enough people know for it to follow you

I believe that the process varies widely by institution and country. In my experience working for a public university in the United States, I needed to file a report for each student accused of plagiarism with the university. I need to provide documentation of plagiarism, an explanation of why this constituted plagiarism, and course materials about the assignment in question. After this process, the university would contact the student to see if they wanted to dispute the accusation or accept a failing grade, with a requirement to take a remedial course regarding plagiarism in order to graduate. This was a thorough, time-consuming process so I did not do it unless it was a clear violation of plagiarism. For students who seemed to have issues with citations, for instance, I would give them a warning that they needed to follow proper rules or else they would be reported to the university. Again, this process can vary widely, but in my instance as a professor, I only reported plagiarism that occurred within the classes I taught while the classes were in session. Unfortunately, I usually report two to three students for plagiarism each year.

Appreciate the response. Have you or your colleagues ever been requested by your school authorities to investigate into plagiarism for any particular student? The reason I am asking this is because I want to understand if investigations into plagiarism are solely the responsibility of a professor or can the school authorities ( dean , academic affairs etc ) request professors to investigate students based on their previous violations.

I have never heard of anyone other than the professor instigating an investigation. Otherwise, how would that person be familiar with the student‘s work? Again, this is just my own experience.

There is certainly no accepted “status of limitations”.  Researchers now have old papers retracted because plagiarism is discovered by other unrelated academics sometimes years after the fact.
As an example a German rabbi has recently been found to have plagiarized part of his 1992 dissertation.  This is not a university example but you can find a large number of miscellaneous examples by searching for the keyword “plagiarism” on the Retraction Watch website and find those related to university, including some cases where degrees were withdrawn, as this case of a US Senator.
So: it does happen that people look back on old work, and it does happen that degrees are revoked as a result of plagiarism.

More examples of politicians whose doctorates were revoked for plagiarism years after the fact: Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Annette Schavan, Pál Schmitt.

There are no real rules, but as you allude, things can get fairly complex, as there are two fairly conflicting goals of Academic Honesty procedures in US schools.
One goal is to defend the value of the diploma from a given school.  If employers figure out that a school graduates a large number of cheaters, they will (appropriately??) weight the value of a diploma from that school in a downward direction.  Toward that goal, finding every instance of dishonesty in a student's history at that school may be a valuable exercise.
The other goal would be to modify the behavior of a student caught cheating, providing the opportunity of learning from the experience and learning how not to cheat.  With that in mind, if one delves too deeply into past behavior, one might find a veritable well of plagiarism, bringing the level of penalty up to permanent separation, thus removing the pathway of modifying behavior.
These goals may well conflict.  The ideal medium would be to identify cheating every time and immediately upon the event, but that really can't happen.
Practically, it would be difficult to gather all of a student's past (and passed!) assignments and put them under a microscope.  It's also a big ask for faculty members.
Note that for faculty caught plagiarizing, it's fairly likely that their life work will be put under a microscope, that that's probably appropriate.

In Germany in 2013, 33 years after writing her doctoral thesis, the education minister Annette Schavan was stripped of here doctorate by her Alma Mater, Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. She subsequently resigned her post. Your country may differ but educational institutions and employers can have long memories in this regard.

At my institution each department has a plagiarism officer, who deals with cases reported by faculty according to the procedures set out in university regulations.  I am aware of at least one case where the plagiarism officer conducted a review of a students previous work because of the nature of their offense (after it had been investigated and punished appropriately).  So retrospective investigations can and do happen, if the institutions regulations allow it (and there is good reason).


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Accused of plagiarism in my master thesis, which I submitted two years ago. What now?
I submitted my master thesis two years ago and I got a passing grade. Now I got a call from the university stating that my supervisor has found plagiarism in some pages of the thesis. They told me that they will send me a letter and I have to give my statement, and then the case will be submitted to the committee and they will decide what to do.
My question is: what are the criteria for grading a master thesis? If the supervisor already passed me two years ago, did he not check for plagiarism then?
I don't know what to do.

We don't know what your supervisor did two years ago. The criteria is a local question. But there is "apparent" plagiarism and there is "intentional" plagiarism. Did you intentionally copy ideas and present them as your own?

I even dont know which part I have done pladgirism. They havent told me yet. As of today they said to me that I have to be prepared some questions asked by the committe

@Zabia It may not be possible to know what parts you are going to be accused of plagiarizing, but if it's your own work you should know that you plagiarized. Did you?

I'm compelled to point out that the comment interaction so far resembles any of the thirty or so plagiarism cases that I deal with each term.

"If the supervisor already passed me two years ago, did he not check for plagiarism then?" -- If you drive past a police car, and the cop does not pull you over, then that does not mean that you cannot later be arrested for driving without a license.

You did not even mention the country, attitudes against Plagiarism vary a lot across countries.

@Dr.Snoopy That's a red herring. The main point is that the OP doesn't outright say "But I didn't plagiarize!" He is beating around the bush and bringing up points like "they didn't check 2 years ago, why are they checking now?" Anyone familiar with this kind of stuff already knows what happened.

As a practical matter for having a clear StackExchange-question, it seems reasonable to assume that the asker did plagiarize.

My Masters thesis was supposed to be a continuation of a previous student's work. I quickly discovered that the thesis was mostly directly copied from one of the leading texts in the field (entire chapters) and the FORTRAN code was randomly generated gibberish. So no checks at all were done! It was only when I raised the issue that it was acknowledged that the student fell out with the industry funder - but they also strongly implied I shouldn't take it any further which I regret now (20+ years later).

So I'm not supprised it wasn't picked up until perhaps some third party read the thesis with the expectation that it might be useful to them.

@Nelson I interpret his "I even don't know..." comment to be that he didn't intentionally plagiarize stuff. Intentionally as in "I copied intro from wiki even though I knew I shouldn't, and then I just reordered a bit to beat the text similarity checker." vs doing nearly the very same thing, just by thinking "I thought I was supposed to reword wiki and other sources, what is wrong now?"

Is it possible that someone has reused your text?  That might be triggering an automatic detection system, when it is you that has been plagiarised.

Per the chat on @Buffy's answer, it might help if you clarify what you are asking here. The title says "What now?", presumably asking what this process entails, how you should handle it, and what happens afterwards depending on the outcome. But the body of your question asks "what are the criteria for grading a master's thesis?" This question seems completely out of left field - why does this matter? If your thesis contains plagiarism, how would understanding the grading process 2 years ago have any bearing? I think spelling out your question(s) coherently would help answerers.

@Polygorial That is only true if you interpret the question as "what process will the university follow?", but the question just asks "What now?" and says "I don't know what to do", so it's reasonable to interpret the question as asking for advice on what the OP should do in this situation. In that case it absolutely matters whether they are guilty or innocent.

@Polygorial whether the thesis did contain plagiarism is the most important question when deciding what to do about it.  If the thesis does contain plagiarism and the student argues that it didn't, then if the plagiarism is demonstrated this is likely to be viewed as an aggravating factor and the penalty may be increased.  If plagiarism is clear, the student is better off just admitting it.

What happens next depends on the policies of your institution. However, it's likely within their power to revoke a degree for substantial academic misconduct; they may also have options for lesser penalties. No one but the committee evaluating your case can make a determination of what your consequences will be.
If you didn't plagiarize, you will have to make a strong case in your favor.
If you did plagiarize, then that's your fault. Just because you got past your advisor the first time without being detected doesn't absolve you of misconduct. You can argue that you made a mistake, or didn't understand what you did was plagiarism, or that the plagiarism was a minor part of your whole work, but it's up to the committee to decide if they believe you and if it matters.
It's important to know that plagiarism means taking the words/ideas of others without credit. Plagiarism is not a "similarity score" or similar automated document comparison algorithm. If words/phrases in your thesis overlap with another document because they are standard phrases in your field or coincidental matches, that isn't plagiarism unless you actually took the phrases without credit (citations, quotations). Similarly, if you took another document and edited the sentence structures or replaced words with synonyms but did not credit the original document, or simply failed to acknowledge the source of ideas in your thesis, it's possible to plagiarize without any text overlap.

While it’s true in principle that coincidental overlaps do not constitute plagiarism, the practical truth is that plagiarism is what the investigating board decide it is. It is by no means unheard of for people to have their degrees revoked based on coincidental similarities, sometimes with works the person wasn’t even familiar with when writing. In such cases, that person did plagiarise, because that’s the ruling the university arrived at – regardless of whether they actually plagiarised anything.

@JanusBahsJacquet Sure, errors occur, of different levels of seriousness. I've seen a couple plagiarism cases here at Academia.SE where the ineptitude of the accusation led me to believe that the degree itself should have no actual value (e.g., instructors who believe that plagiarism==similarity index). I believe it's far more common that cases of quite obvious plagiarism are ignored in order to not create a "fight". The value of a degree relies substantially on trust in the institution that issues it, and that trust includes the institution competently investigating plagiarism.

I asked the supervisor and he told me that there are some pages which I didnt put the sources and when I saw he was correct but these pages are not directly relates to my thesis. I took these things as to ubderstand the Reader the background but didnt claim as my own work or not it is relates to my thesis work. So now my question is that what should I write as he asked me to give my statement and then he will decide what to do.

It is the fact that I have forget to put the sources on Such pages. But the accusation is that I directly copied it from there and therefore it is an attempt of cheating , specially some tables and pictures which I stated that for to understand the reader

@Zabia I'm having trouble understanding your comments. I don't see how pages in your thesis can be not directly related to your thesis: all of your background introductory/discussion content is as much part of your thesis as your results. If you've provided tables and images from someone else without a citation that seems quite bad to me.

So now what I have to write so that I can get out from this. As I am admitting that I forget to mention the sources. Will be thankful if you can provide me any help what should I write in my defence

@Zabia There are no magic words to "get out of it" - why is it so hard to recognize that your misconduct has consequences? Likely the best you can do is to admit that you did something wrong and ask for the opportunity to correct it.

what is the criteria for grading the Master Thesis?

You'll have to refer to the rules of your university.  There are no universal criteria.

If the supervisor already passed me two years ago, did he not check for plagiarism then?

Maybe, maybe not.  It doesn't really matter.  The author of a thesis would be liable for plagiarism in it, no matter how or when it was discovered.

I don't know what to do.

I would recommend finding someone to advise you who is familiar with the disciplinary process at this particular institution.  Something like an Ombuds or Student Affairs office might be able to connect you with someone.  Or if there is another faculty member or administrator there whom you trust.

I think this is the most constructive advice.  The OP has to find out what the detailed rules are they are accused of breaking (and the institution should provide that to them if asked).  They also need to wait for the details of the accusation - they'd can't defend against a vague claim and it's a bit farcical sending someone a notice they're accused of something without any detail, but such is bureaucracy everywhere.

I have been involved in a similar situation. A student plagiarized portions of their thesis in ways that should have been obvious to the major professor, but this professor likely didn't carefully read the thesis and the committee passed the student. I'm not really sure how this happened because the thesis was a bit of a mess and had numerous other problems unrelated to the plagiarism, but somehow they passed the student. A couple years later the plagiarism was noticed and an institutional ethics committee from the university requested a meeting with the student. They required that the thesis be revised to remove the plagiarism and the student was given a two-month deadline to submit a revised thesis. This was difficult for the student since they had moved on to another job, but they did complete the revision and, later, a second revision requested by the committee. Finally, the committee accepted the second revision and the student kept their degree.
As others have said, this procedure will likely vary among institutions, but this is one example of what can happen.

This can be scary. You need legal advice from an attorney who has dealt with such cases, preferably at the same university.
You need at least two items from your university. You need to review their definitions and standards for plagiarism. You also need to review their procedures for reviewing cases of alleged plagiarism. Both of these should be obtainable from a Dean's office or other administrator.
Don't try to second guess the specific claims. Wait until you get them and review them yourself and then with your attorney.

You have entered a policy driven process. This means your faculty must follow the policies and procedures of the university exactly. If they deviate from those then you have a cause of legal action. Do not rush into anything without advice of your attorney.

1/2 This may or may not be a good idea based on location and culture. I am a research fellow in Germany. I have been part of the review board numerous times. We do not accuse students of plagiarism lightly because A) we want our students to succeed (statistics) and B) sheds a bad light the normal evaluation procedure (reputation).

2/2 Sometimes a student works sloppy, makes mistakes, does not cite properly. During the review process, student is questioned. It them may become obvious that i.e. a paragraph should have been quoted instead of cited. The accusations may be dropped. However if the student involves an attorney or even threatens to take the case to court, we strongly believe in malicious intent rather than negligience.

My response is for American universities. No one has to threaten to take a case to court, universities are accustomed to this happening. Universities that do not follow their own procedures are likely to either lose the case or simply be ordered to go back and do so.

I have my own views on plagiarism and they are not universally shared.
I believe that true plagiarism needs to be an intentional act. I read something and decide that I want to present it as my own original thoughts. That is pretty hard to prove. But it must be avoided if scientific principles are to be followed. Among other things, it breaks the chain of context provided by the original, which can lead to errors later. That is independent, however, of whether sanctions are warranted.
This follows a general rule that ethical transgressions require intent.
One reason that it can be hard to prove is that it is about ideas, not words. It is possible to plagiarize using exactly none of the original words. The intention can be invisible. So, in particular, paraphrasing an original doesn't make plagiarism go away.
But there are also two kinds of "apparent" plagiarism. They are problematic, but don't involve the same sort of intention. And they may be sanctionable or not.
The first is not knowing the rules at all and so not knowing that you have broken them, even if you do something so bold as to copy-paste actually expression (which can also fall afoul of copyrights, but that is a different issue). In reality, if this is the case, someone has failed in teaching you the rules. It is a "we don't know what we don't know" sort of situation. Some people just grok the rules, but others assume that everyone groks them and so this sort of unintentional, obvious, "apparent" plagiarism can be easy to charge and hard to avoid.
And note that copying words can easily make this sort of apparent plagiarism look like a blatant, intentional, act, when, indeed it was, but the "intention" wasn't actually to break an unknown rule, just to copy words blindly.
This sort of thing is what plagiarism checkers look for - copied words, never mind the ideas.
As an aside, I've had student not know some things that seem blindingly obvious to others and that should have been taught. In this case the student's misunderstanding was also reinforced by other factors. But at base, it was bad teaching that led him to error. He hated me for a while for correcting his issues, thinking I was lying to him. And it took me a while to understand that the underlying problem wasn't his.
The other sort of "apparent" plagiarism is just sloppy research practice. "Yes, I know the rules and intend to follow them, but messed up in my writing (focused on other things) and missed the necessary citation. Oh, expletive, I messed up." Sloppy research is, in my view a somewhat (not a lot) lesser offense than deliberate plagiarism. It leads to other issues as well as this one, of course.
I don't know, of course, what you did, or what is being charged. Whether it is deemed serious enough to cancel your degree or not is up to the committee. I expect, however, that at a minimum you might be asked to re-write the thesis taking better care to avoid sloppiness and to follow the rules.
When some publication appears to contain plagiarized material, even if that was unintentional, it needs to be corrected. Sometimes removal is required, sometimes editing might suffice.  But, even with "benign" cases, it is important that the public record itself be corrected. But, as I said earlier, it is vital that the "chain of context" be maintained in scholarly writing and even unintentional and "apparent" plagiarism requires correction.
However, and this is why I write this post, I think it is incumbent on any research advisor or supervisor to assure that their students understand the rules. It is simple enough to promulgate them, but students don't coming into a degree program knowing everything that others think they should know. Make a specific point of teaching the rules of the game before you start to play.

There is also another possibility that doesn't involve plagiarism of any kind, but might be misinterpreted as such. That is, the author had no knowledge of the earlier work at all, and reproduced it independently and innocently. That is pretty incredibly unlikely in case the words match, of course. It is also possible that it is a case of sloppy scholarship. "Ah, I shoulda, coulda found that if I'd looked harder."
Independent simultaneous work is pretty common, since the state of the art in a field advances on a front that is known to many. So many might be asking the same questions simultaneously.

Some commenters have suggested that I make a recommendation about what you should do in this situation. It is hard to be definite, since we don't know what is actually being charged or whether it meets the definition of true plagiarism or not.
Once you know more you have some options.
If you did (intentionally) plagiarize you can beg forgiveness, and (hopefully) honestly promise to do better. But the judgement may be harsh if the evidence is strong.
If you (honestly) didn't know the rules you can state that, though whether it would be accepted or not is up to the committee of judges. In that case, they may share blame, but are unlikely (sadly) to acknowledge that.
If you were sloppy in your research or writing, then you can admit to that and it may (or not) gain you a bit. Sloppy research isn't terribly rare, sadly.
In any case, you need to correct the thesis, though that may be moot if the committee rejects any appeal.
You may just have to accept the consequences. Sorry. But you have little control here.

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Assuming that you did not plagiarize, it's best to not engage with this process at university and instead start a legal process against the university. Years after students have left university, they cannot be expected to take part in any proceedings at university. The university should be required to have a far greater burden of proof to take away your degree than a mere suspicion that you committed plagiarism and you not willing to take part in their proceedings.
While this should be a slam dunk legal case, it's best to consult with a lawyer. The lawyer can write a letter to the university making the threat of legal action against the university should they go ahead with their proceedings and take away your degree.

I am not a lawyer, but I am not sure there is grounds to start a legal proceeding until they have revoked your degree. At which point, this whole thing will be much more difficult. Second, you recommend that you shouldn't "be expected to take part in any proceedings at university [sic]" but instead spending time in legal proceedings. This sounds much more complex than just engaging with the academic proceedings (for free!).

This is very dangerous advice. There is a good chance the university has greater proof and the case may not be as clearcut as one thinks. A university absolutely can expect cooperation in an academic process involving your academic degree and the cut off times are very long (at least ten years in my neck of the woods). If you go the legal route as suggested you have burned all bridges without even knowing where they lead to.

It is also an advice based on next-to-no information: OP did not tell us the name of country (or the State, if it is in the US).  Assuming, for concreteness, that the university is located in the US, the laws and court decisions on revocation of advanced degrees vary greatly state-to-state. Calling such a legal case a "slam-dunk" is irresponsible. Lastly, large universities tend to have deep pockets and numerous lawyers to handle legal cases. Even if the case is "slam-dunk" as you say, in the end the plaintiff (who might be a PhD student) might  loose the case simply due lack of funds.

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How to make the best of bad PhD rotation?
I am in my first PhD rotation. I wanted to ask everyone if my current experience is normal. I have been rotating in the current lab for less than a month. My rotation advisor is very nice and she is doing amazing work in a field I have no background in. I do have experience as a tech for over 3 years. However, as I said, this area is different. Anyway, I am working with a senior graduate student who is in the process of graduating. When I first started, I thought we had good relationship. However, as more experiments were not working (I.e had nothing to do with me, more of the concept related). Anyway, I think my graduate student is frustrated and doesn’t want to train me. She comes in late and ignores me. I instead have been asking her if I can shadow her when she is doing experiments which I thought she was okay with. I guess not anymore. She shrugs me off even when I want to ask questions. It also doesn’t help that no one in the lab really talks to me. I’m just ignored. I have talked with some of them sometimes, but not a lot. I just feel alienated. I honestly haven’t learned a thing. I even left early in the lab because there is no way I’m picking this lab as my thesis lab.
Maybe I’m over thinking it, but I wanted to ask everyone: how can I make the best of this experience since I have a couple more weeks?

Welcome to Ac.SE! We like to focus on answerable, actionable questions. Unfortunately, it's hard to answer "is it normal" - because certainly it happens sometimes a lab is a bad fit. "How to get through it" might be a better question for this site, if you reframe as "How to make the most of a bad rotation." Does that make sense?

You're in your first rotation. Presumably you have at least two more? You'll have a better idea of what normal is and what a good fit is once you've done more than one. "Normal" isn't a very useful marker, anyways; you should join the lab that's the best fit for you, not the one that is "normal".

Are you just asking whether it is common to have to deal with unhelpful people? Note that a lot of academics are very introverted. To be successful you probably need to outgrow it (requires work) but students aren't often there yet.

Thank you guys! Based on the first comment, I changed my question. I still want to make the best of this rotation. With that, let me know what you think!

Welcome to the site! I suggested some edits to your last paragraph: we also don't take "poll questions" like "has anyone else ever...", but an answerable question like "how to make the best of this" might be something we can help with.

Note about changing questions - if there had been an answer, it would be not appropriate to change the question such that the answer no longer makes sense. In that case you would ask a new question.

Hello, can you add to the question what this rotation means? It is not a case in my country.

I’m so sorry you are having such a tough experience. I am also just beginning my first rotation so I don’t know if I have too much expertise.. I would be direct about the treatment you are facing. Either that be talking to the professor or your mentor. Usually, people have a lot on their plate and it may be difficult to supervise a new student, but at the same time it seems that your mentor is creating a toxic work environment. Honestly, if you told them that, what do you have to lose? You still have more opportunities for rotations. A lot of times professors create a picture to new students of their labs environment that just does not resemble reality. I think it would be wise to talk to your mentor/professor so you aren’t suffering silently and so you can still learn!! You got this, good luck :-)

It is normal for a departing PhD student to ignore training duties.  When I was about to finish my PhD, I also did not train new students.  My delusional supervisor thought that if I did it before, I would do it again.  I had to be quite firm with both my supervisor and the student coordinator that I would be at conferences every other week, and writing the rest of the time, so nobody could shadow me in the lab.
These things happen either because the supervisor does not understand the graduating PhD students' situation the way they should, the graduating student did not articulate their situation.  Situation can include "I do not feel like doing this."
Anyway, your course of action is clear:  Find someone who wants to involve you in their research.  Your first person to ask is rotation advisor.  Then ask the person who coordinates the rotations.  Then ask everyone else.  Know, and be ready to articulate, the research topic of any strangers you approach.
Waiting around simply because you were told to do a rotation is not a good strategy.

First, I suggest remaining calm. As you say, this is just one rotation, and you don't have to choose this lab long term. So long as you remain in good standing in the program, you have little to lose here.

I wanted to ask everyone if my current experience is normal.

Well, yes and no. It's certainly not optimal, and many professors do offer excellent support to new students. So, I am hopeful that your future rotations will go better. Still, what you describe is not unheard of: the time it takes to properly supervise a new grad student is usually (much) more than the time we save by having an extra pair of hands. So, mentoring new grad students (especially ones on rotation) is often a low priority even for well-meaning supervisors. It's certainly common for the professor to delegate supervision to a post-doc or student (often one who is both busy and unexperienced with supervision) and to assume everything is going well until they hear otherwise.

She comes in late and ignores me...She shrugs me off...I’m just ignored...I honestly haven’t learned a thing...there is no way I’m picking this lab as my thesis lab.

Reading this, my overwhelming reaction is: what do you have to lose? If you remain polite and distant and just do what you can, there is little chance this lab will help your career long-term. On the other hand, if you are much more aggressive about trying to get something to do, then either things will get better (great) or people will remain hostile (no real change from the status quo).
So, a good first step is probably to be much more direct with the grad student. "I notice you're very busy and don't really have time to mentor me. Is there something else I can do over the next few weeks that would be helpful? Should I ask to be reassigned?" I have little hope that this will solve your problem, but it's worth a shot.

My rotation advisor is very nice and she is doing amazing work

Assuming your attempt to resolve this with the grad student doesn't go anywhere, this is your next stop. Do not criticize the grad student, just state facts ("I don't have a project, I'm not able to get my questions answered, I was told not to disturb her, we only overlap for an hour a day") and present possible solutions. Hopefully the professor can reassign you or come up with a different project for you.

I even left early in the lab because there is no way I’m picking this lab as my thesis lab.

I am reasonably hopeful that one of the above steps will succeed. But, it's possible that it fails: the professor brushes you off and/or the other group members are irrationally enraged by your attempts to resolve your situation. In this case, I agree with your instinct here; do the minimum you need to remain in good standing with the program, take the remaining time to learn something useful through self-study, and work hard on future rotations. Good luck.

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Is there an independent and fair organisation for investigating and documenting discrimination and power abuse in academia?
Instances of discrimination and/or bullying are common in academia. Here are some examples from BzH, Elephant in the Lab.org, Science, Nature, Guardian, and Guardian again.
Is there any place where such incidents be reported? Preferably outside of the university system, since universities would naturally have a conflict of interest.

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For users commenting that this question is not a good format for this site, the correct thing to do would be to "vote to close". For OP: this is a Q&A site, not a discussion forum. You can ask specific, answerable questions here, but do not expect to participate in discussions or arguments in the comments. See also: https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask If you want to find the resource you ask for in the body of your question, that's probably okay (and you got the answer). If you want to have a discussion about abuse in academia, that is not a good fit for this format.

@BryanKrause I don't see where I got the answer. Is there any independent place/body beyond the university where one can register a complaint or is there not?

Please do not try to make your post into promotional material for an organization. The answers you've gotten say: there's no way to achieve a fair venue that you seem to envision, these issues are typically handled at an institution level, there are certainly ways to make things public but these are not fair or "independent".

@mathematiker1209 - please do not engage in edit wars (especially with mods!). I've taken a stab at cleaning up the post; hopefully that satisfies everyone. As for your third-party link: I'm not sure why this link needs to be in your question; your question is already clear without it. You are correct that we do not ban linking to third-party sites (so long as you disclose any affiliation), but we see a ton of "astroturfing" attempts and so try to allow such links only when they are really necessary / useful.

Clearly there are a number of places where incidents can be reported - you have linked to a variety of them. I presume you want a venue that will adjudicate the issue, which leads to having a set of policies and procedures in place. Which universities have.

In my opinion, there is no way to achieve any such fair venue to record mishandling of students. The reason are as follows:

This is not unique at all to universities; mishandling can occur in any work environment.

There is no way to assure the fairness of the recorded instances. Since human civilization has invented and developed the concept of due process precisely for handling all such conflicts between parties, and the states/countries are the authorities that invest money and build the infrastructure for maintaining all aspects of fairness and due process (the legal system), there is basically no way (at this point in time) to replace it with websites purporting to "expose" mishandling of students or employees by professors and employers.

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Many universities have a standard process to handle these cases. I agree with you that one of the considerations students should make when picking a graduate school is the existence of a strong student support system, and options for recourse against bad advisor behavior. Of course, no one ever thinks that this would happen to them, so often enough this is not considered.
Are there websites that "expose" bad professors? Not to my knowledge. However, it is easy enough to find out before applying. I strongly suggest that students talk with existing students of a PI about their advising style, their interaction with the PI, and how much supervision they actually get. If a professor is unwilling to let you speak with their students, then this is a huge red flag.
As @Dilworth says, the main issue with the existence of such a website is that it is impossible to ensure that accusations on the website are not frivolous or unfounded. An accusation of misconduct towards one's advisees is a serious matter, and should be treated as such. Often enough, there's no one side that's obviously wrong: students sometimes "disappear" for long stretches of time, ignore the PI's advice on choice of research directions, or are simply not suited for grad school. The tendency of some students is to blame their PI for their failures. Ultimately, the advisor-advisee relationship is very personal.
I have seen instances where an amazing advisor with an excellent track record of successfully graduating students had to drop a certain student because they weren't a good fit, hurting that student's future prospects. Should that professor be held "accountable" for this?
Similarly, I know of advisors who have very abrasive and unpleasant advising styles, but were able to graduate several stellar students who are now leaders in my field. Are they on your website?
There are several legal issues with such a website. Posting something so damaging on a public forum may have legal implications for those posting it, at least in the United States. You may have lawyers representing the university, the faculty union (if the professor belongs to one), or the professor coming after you for posting damaging accusations online.
Finally, there is the question of incentives. Suppose that I see that Professor X's former student is now applying for a position in my lab/company, and that they posted a scathing review of Professor X's behavior on your website. Talking with people close to the matter, I get mixed signals - some side with the student, some with Professor X. Would I want to hire this student? Probably not. You might argue that this can be anonymous, but it's really not very difficult to figure out who the poster is - after all, there are only so many people in a research lab, and only so many of them who drop out/are not doing well. Thus, it may not even be in the students' best interest to have these accusations posted online.
To conclude, there is indeed a power imbalance between advisors and students, which both sides should be aware of and treat with great respect. As a student, you should ensure that you know your rights, and that your university has a support system for you to protect them. I don't think that your proposed solution is the best way to handle it.

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I duplicated a paragraph in my master's thesis. How bad is this and what to do now?
I wrote my master thesis in Germany and submitted it on time. After checking I notice some small typing errors and some problems with my references (minor ones, not a problem really). I just saw a horrible mistake: I  accidentally added the same paragraph (300 words) twice in a row. This resulted from how I prefer to use secondary programs to check my thesis for mistakes.
I wrote to my supervisor but he did not reply. I know it is not considered self plagiarism because it is my work, and I am not trying to get credit twice. I fear that I will fail because a master's thesis is not supposed to have errors such as this. Is there anything I can do? In German universities, corrections after submission are not allowed, so I can not delete this chapter.
An update: I successfully defend my thesis, (however they drop 10% of my grade because of duplication and about 5% for other typing mistakes, so overall i got 84.7% or 2.0).

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Mento: thanks for the update. We don’t allow questions to be added weeks after the original post; feel free to make a new, stand-alone post with additional questions though.

"Horrible mistakes" in research are usually ones related to methodology or interpretation and result in the conclusions having some fundamental flaw.
You're describing a typographical error. This isn't much different than misspelling some words, or having a few sentences that aren't quite grammatical. So long as your writing can be clearly understood, it is rare that anyone will care about limited typesetting issues. It would be absolutely absurd to fail a thesis for such a reason. Fix it if you can, forget about it if you can't.

I upvoted your answer, but I would not call this type of error "typographical". "Typesetting" is certainly correct, but I associate "typographical" more with something like mixing font sizes or wrong indentation.

@Dubu A typographical error, usually called a typo, is simply a typing mistake. The most common form is probably accidental misspelling by pressing the wrong key on the keyboard, but it also includes omitting or repeating words. I'd say accidentally pressing Ctrl+V twice instead of once is a typo just like pressing any other key the wrong number of times. Selection of font sizes is a typographical design choice, but I wouldn't call mixing font sizes a typo.

@NuclearHoagie I partly agree: I wouldn’t call mixing font sizes or wrong indentation typos either, because typos are, as you say, “accidental misspelling by pressing the wrong key on the keyboard”. But incorrect font size, indentation, leading, tracking, typeface, etc., are all also types of typographical error. Despite what dictionaries say, I would say typos are not the same as typographical errors: they are a specific type of typographical error.

it is rare that anyone will care about limited typesetting issues woah, woah, woah. My most exciting paper had a minor typesetting issue on my name and I would qualify it as "devastatingly catastrophic", not "horrible" :) This is basically a lost paper because what is printed at the place of my name has nothing to do with my name. It was 30 years ago and I am still crying at night, sometimes.

@NuclearHoagie Sorry, it didn't occur to me that you could mean "typo" when writing "typographical error". Like JanusBahsJacquet, I always understood "typo" as a short form for "typing error" and not related to (the art of) typography. I could blame it on not being a native English speaker.

I realize that German universities are pretty strict and I'm not there, but, in reality, the cause of the duplication may be the same as the cause of two two words being identical. (See what I did there??)
It seems to be a paste operation repeated with shaky fingers.
I would chuckle over it (in the US), but it isn't a reason to fail a person after years of work. That would be foolish. If they expect absolute perfection in document preparation then they would all be failures themselves.
For the record it is well known that proofing your own work is notoriously difficult. Your brain "knows" what is there before you start reading and "sees" what it expects to see.
I would relax. If it becomes a problem, which I doubt will happen, then deal with it then, perhaps through higher authority.
Make any corrections prior to publication, of course.

As someone working at a Germany university: That's exactly my (and the common) perspective on such things.

piqued my interest: Is there a name for the "blind spot" phenomenon that makes it so difficult for us to objectively proof-read our own written words?

@uhoh,, a similar (same?) think has us use the wrong word in some situations which is often embarrassing. We were "thinking about" that other thing while speaking about this thing. (Hmmm, I won't  correct my error in this comment - an example?)

@Buffy I'm going to call it "cognitive leakage" and go make amother cup of coffee.

that was a duplicate of Is there a name for reading things how you meant to write them? so I'll modify to ask something different at some point.

This mistake doesn't look horrible to me at all. It would be horrible if your reviewers see at horrible. Yours is marginally worse than a typo. Since Master thesis writers are not expected to be hiring editors, I wouldn't even bother to mark this if I were a reviewer. Forget about this, it's not worth your worrying.

After submitting my Master's thesis (also at a German university, albeit back in 2006) I noticed I had accidentally cut away half of a paragraph (I was using LaTeX, in which the %-sign serves as a comment and was summarising some percentages...). Nobody noticed (or maybe they did, but in the end nobody cared.) I assume it depends a bit whether you're in STEM/MINT, where the written text doesn't matter that much as you usually have already achieved some results with your thesis work; or whether you're in the humanities, where the writing itself constitutes the work and thus might be weighted a bit more.
In general, I'd assume like the other answers that this is all no biggie. You mentioned your supervisor didn't reply -- that also kinda points in that direction.

Sometimes when grading you notice but you don't care for minor things, as asking for a correction is more work for everyone, and possibly puts the thesis in a worse light than it deserves.

It depends on how exactly the process works, but this sounds like "Accept with minor corrections" territory (assuming nothing else is wrong).
While I don't know the detailed process in Germany, when I submitted my MSc. thesis in Ireland (all those years ago...), MS Word managed to completely mangle about half a page of the text in the version submitted for examination, such that it was garbage. I completely missed this prior to submission. It turned out the external examiner either missed it or didn't care. The internal examiner flagged it up as a "minor correction".
My understanding is that it is quite common in the Sciences for thesis to get a long list of minor corrections requested from the examiners. Correcting an accidental double-paste sits right in the category of "minor corrections" as I understand it. If everything else is good, I personally, based on my experience, would expect it to be dealt with like that.

Germany doesn't have any system of corrections at PhD level or MSc level.

@JackAidley At least at PhD level, this is not true, at least not in generality. I for sure know there are places in Germany where the reviewers can list mistakes, and ask for correction.

I predict that a significant fraction of your audience will not even notice the error. They will assume that they simply nodded off while reading it.

This doesn't address the OPs concern whether this will get them into trouble in case it is noticed.

It addresses the likelihood that anyone will want to mention it to anyone else.


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Timeline on mathematics postdoctoral reasearch proposal
I am applying for a postdoc in mathematics and I have to include a research proposal with the usual info and also timescale. This bugs me a lot. I am doing theoretical research, I don't have any simulations or experiments of any sort. So this question about timescale seems absurd to me. I could guess approximately how long it will take me to de the task I am listing, but honestly I see no point in that. How can I know how long will I need to do something? For my PhD I spent a whole year completely stuck at on (vital) point and once I moved from there everything was sorted out rather fast.
So should I guess some timescale and ignore the possibility of being horribly wrong? How detailed do I have to be? Are there any examples I can look at?

I think the goal here is to make sure you have a plan, not that you have an infallible plan. No matter what you do I think you need to demonstrate that you've thought it through carefully and know what is feasible and what is not.

Does the demand for a time scale come from the mathematics department that you're applying to, or does it come from the higher administration because of a failure to distinguish mathematics from the experimental sciences? If it comes from the higher administration, then you shouldn't worry; just write something fairly reasonable and assume the mathematicians who read your application will ignore it. If the request comes from the mathematicians, then you probably should worry, and should perhaps reconsider whether you really want to be in  that department.

@AndreasBlass ah, yes. It's not the department that wants this.

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Legal framework for academic recruiting in UK
This is related to a previous question.
When a university posts a public ad for a vacancy does it only have to follow its internal policy for conflicts of interest or is there also some law that applies? What is the legal framework under which the recruitment happens?

I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it, the main legislation that must be followed when hiring in the UK is the Equalities Act 2010, which states that Direct discrimination, Indirect discrimination or discrimination by association is illegal if the discrimination arises from a protected characteristic. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, married or people in civil partnerships, pregnant people and those on maternity leave, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.
Beyond that Universities, like all private employers are free to set their own guidelines for recruitment. Most universities do have pretty strict codes for recruitment however, both to ensure they employ the best person for the job, but also to guard against the possibility of a case being brought under the above legislation (if you hired your white sister, rather than a black person, that might be a case of race discrimination).

"if you hired your white sister, rather than a black person, that might be a case of race discrimination" ...only if you hired her because she was white and the other candidate was not, and not because she was your sister.

True, but the university doesn't want the stress of having to prove it was because she was your sister, rather than that the other candidate was black. If you have a black candidate who was clearly better than the candidate hired, that would be sufficient evidence to go to tribunal at least.

@IanSudbery Academic recruitment criteria are not fully objective - there is no tool to measure "excellent teaching" and "outstanding research". If the recruitment committee recorded the decision that candidate A is better, there is usually little formal evidence to prove otherwise (unless candidate B lied in their CV or faked qualification documents).

The reason we are made to keep score sheets, even if we mostly know that the scores are made up, is so that the university has records if they should ever be challenged in such a case. You always have to be able to give a reason why you chose candidate A over B, in terms of the specified person profile. These rules aren't primarily to make recruitment objective, but to cover the universities behind should anyone every claim they were discriminated against.

I would guess that if the person hired were a family member of the person doing the hiring, and the reject person was from a protected group that would be enough prima-facie evidence to take the case to tribunal. I'm not saying the complainant would win.


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Research on technology enhanced learning?
The discourse about teaching seems to be dominated recently by the idea of technology enhanced learning. I have been talking a lot with colleagues about that and there seems to be some kind of consensus that the usage of technology is most of the times beneficial.
It also seems that many take this route in order to make their lectures interesting and load the with interesting "stuff" (animations, videos, etc).
I am very sceptical about this and I am kind of worried that making lectures "too interesting" can be a problem. I tend to think that students need to pace themselves and if you drag them along your lecture they end up remembering nothing.
Is there any serious research done on this? Do we understand the effects that fast-paced interesting lectures have on learning? Is there any research-based list of good and bad practices?

Yes, of course there is serious research on this and I invite you to search it out. But I will speak only from my long (45 years) of experience.
Flash will catch their interest and might make them cheer, but it won't teach them much of anything. What the instructor does in the classroom is far less important than what the student does on her/his own and in collaboration with other students.
It is practice and feedback that teaches you. There is an interesting book, The Art of Changing the Brain that explains why this is. In order to learn, it is necessary to actually re-wire the brain: changing the synaptic connections between neurons - physical changes. That doesn't happen instantaneously (practice) and learning can go wrong if we reinforce the wrong things (feedback).
I've had the following experience and so have many others. I give a lecture and walk out feeling terrible. I made a mistake. I stumbled over something that should have been simple. I struggled to find my way back to a better place and finally ended with something sensible. A failed lecture.
But then the students I meet in the hallway tell me what a great lecture it was. In fact, I showed them the struggle we must go through to come to something like the truth.
I've also had the opposite experience. In teaching statistics I wanted students to have a clear idea about sampling and how means of samples relate to the overall mean of the population. I created the absolutely perfect lecture. It was logically flawless and exceedingly interesting. It used a special trick so that students weren't likely to confuse the two uses of the word "mean" in sampling. I was damn brilliant.
But, of course, the universal response from the students was "Huh?".
Be aware that as a teacher, your students are unlike you. The exception would be if you are teaching doctoral students. They are likely to be a lot like you, but the others are not. Everyone learns differently, but few - vanishingly few - learn from seeing something once, no matter how brilliant.
The different "learning modalities" are quite distinct and not shared by many. You need different ways to approach the material you are teaching so that different people can relate to it. Some will do with reading, others seeing, others hearing, etc.
But all need reinforcement and feedback. Students need practice and reflection on that practice.
My mantra as a teacher was "It doesn't matter what I, the teacher, do. It only matters what you, the student, do." Maybe not absolutely accurate, of course, but a good philosophy for students to have.
If they don't work as hard at learning as a skilled athlete does at their sport, they aren't going to excel.

I wish I could give plus 10....

It was logically flawless and exceedingly interesting — I knew exactly where this was going.

@JeffE, sadly, I didn't. But it was a good lesson for me in the long run.


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To what extent is the university budget public?
I guess this is technically a legal question, but since it is about universities I hope it is ok to ask it here.
Let's say that university A has employed the construction company X for a big project. Let's also say that from an outsider's perspective the deal seems a bit dodgy. How much of this information has to be public? In other words, what can a general member of public learn about this deal?
Assume that university A is a standard "public" UK university and company X is just a big private company.

The key to this information request would be the Freedom of Information Act. The act has lots of things which you cannot request information for, however. One of them is "trade secrets". I don't know if construction work can be considered a trade secret.
Timothy Gowers documented his attempt to get UK universities to reveal their journal subscription costs on his blog. This sounds relatively similar to what you're thinking of. If you attempt to get the same information, I'd guess you'll need to use the same methods, will meet the same obstacles, and get the same results (i.e. you'll eventually be successful).

This answer would also be accurate for the US, due to a very similar law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(United_States) (not a critique, just a comment to expand the applicability of the answer for others curious in the future).


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Marie Curie IF Global fellowship low salary not covering living costs
I started a Marie Curie fellowship, and the salary is lower than I expected (I did not realize employer costs were included in the advertised amounts).
Since moving to the (southern) USA I am experiencing huge costs in living, and the country correction coefficient does not account for it. Each month, after taking costs into account, my pay is negative.
I am struggling to see how this is financially feasible. I am literally going into debt. It is so low that even a "top-up" salary would not cover it.
Did anyone else encounter this problem and what did you do? Would it look bad to leave a Marie Curie fellowship?

What are the "employer costs"?  Are you sure that those are allowed by agreement with the funders?  Have you asked the funders about that?

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Research admin here from an R1 institution in a major metro area here in the US.  I have not personally administered a Marie Curie fellowship, but in looking at two agreements we currently have, one with a university in Denmark, another with one in Italy, I can tell you that the agreements are completely different.  The amounts sent over are completely different.  One actually sent us a budget dedicated for IDC, another said here's a small amount "for everything", and they would pay the fellow directly.
Given that it's not even remotely the same model in my dept, I would say you have to go to your research administrator and ask them to look at the contract.  In my school, we guarantee all students and postdocs a specific minimum rate.  If you are below that, we bring you up to the minimum.
If you are suggesting the taxes are such that you will still be negative, based on how the IRS or other governments handle taxes, that is a bit trickier.  Technically, I am not allowed to consider taxes when administering payroll.  To do so would lead to great inequality and a huge amount of paperwork besides.  This is why we always talk about payroll in terms of gross salaries, never net.
However, it may be that the difference between the agreements I am reading is because of how things like tax law work, and one university knows this and another doesn't.  One agreement may be more to the benefit of the student than another, and no one has considered such implications at this other university.
Overall, the problem with giving advice on Marie Curie is that it is so highly individual.  You can read the published guidance from the organization, but the implementation ranges too much for us to advise based on that.  Contact the research administrator assigned to your fellowship to get specific advice.  You may also need to contact an accountant to understand your tax situation.  It's possible you have a tax treaty that will help this, and so you are paying taxes you will get back later.  Understanding how your taxes should be structured is important, and your institution cannot do this for you -- you are responsible for that. If you can't tell who your research administrator is, start by going to the department manager.  They will know who to contact.

Italians have a hugely advantageous tax treaty where no tax is paid anywhere on salaries for the first few years after arriving in the US. This might simply account for the difference in the discussed cases.

There is an important tax distinction for postdocs that isn't well known unless you've been there. If the money is paid as a grant to a non-employee postdoc (postdoctoral fellow), the money is generally FICA exempt, which saves 7.65% on the employee, and reduces effective fringe by the same amount. Grants are non-wage income.

my pay is negative

Well this is pretty simple : time to move on.
It's just insanity to keep doing this and the solution is as simple as that : you cannot sustain less than zero pay.  You don't even try.
Simply write (email) the department head and all other parties involved in the agreement and state plainly that either they increase the money you take home to a realistic level or you will have no choice but to leave.  State the actual figures.  State you need an urgent positive response and give a deadline - and a deadline you plan to stick to.
And plan to leave.  Assume they will not sort something out quickly or even on a realistic timescale.  Bureaucracies are notorious for preferring to argue over dealing with a problem that doesn't directly affect them and you have multiple agencies involved.
Start looking for a new position now.

Would it look bad to leave a Marie Curie fellowship?

Who cares what it looks like ?  You're going into debt because of this !

This is a sad but realistic answer - one of the reasons we have brain drain from universities to private companies is that people also have a real life: they have to pay the bills, go to the restaurant, have fun, etc. I do not see a reason why PhD students or postdocs are expected to live an ascetic life. Either the research id funded or there is no research as apparently the country decided that the money is better spent elsewhere.

This is not good advice. I received a nastygram like this via a dean during the pandemic. The student freaked out and didn't start by talking to me. They failed to mention to the Dean that they moved to Quebec, and Quebec taxes them at a much higher rate than our state does. How is that my fault? Take some ownership in learning how your paycheck works before you blame people for what it looks like. I didn't ask to have to execute a foreign agreement to pay this guy who just decided to move without checking, putting us in violation. So, you now have a lower net pay. Welcome to the real world.

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin That sounded more like a personal rant against someone you didn't like complaining to you rather than any rational attempt to help the OP.  As for "living in the real world", that does not mean you have to go into debt to work.

@StephenG-HelpUkraine - sorry, I was using an example of how such advice can backfire. They didn't do due diligence before flagging important people and ended up being highly embarrassed to the student dean.  Our own choices impact our paycheck.  In my case, the student moved to a foreign country without permission -- that's beyond my control, and sending angry emails to administrators cannot be the first move.  Asking for help to understand the paycheck is the first step.  I am pretty sure I gave actual advice in my answer to thoughtfully resolve this for the person, no?

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin The OP does not currently have an income to speak of and is going into debt.  There's no upside to this unless they get a realistic income soon (and enough to pay off the debt !).  They either do that or get a different job.  Discussing this with admins from multiple organization who all want to blame someone else for the problem doesn't sound promising, and your remarks make it clear they could all try to blame the OP.  You're looking at it from admin point of view, but admin are not the ones going into debt here.  The OP needs to act decisively.

@StephenG-HelpUkraine, so if I read this correctly, your advice is for them to blow up their current position over what might be an error on their W2?  Or could be resolved with opting out of health insurance, etc.? It clearly sounds like they have something set up wrong on their paperwork -- I would hardly say it's time to get out of the job.  Most universities have postdoc minimum rates, often the NIH minimum (now $56k).  If it's not happening, just asking about the structure helps.  Believe me, I resolve these things every day for 15 years.  It's often an innocent mistake, and may be OP's.

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin My advice was to contact all parties and explain the difficulty and the urgency of the matter, but also to prepare a parachute because they cannot just hang around hoping the debt stops building.  Debt starting out in a career can cripple you and make pursuing your chosen profession impossible.  Maybe you work wonders daily, but my long experience of admins (not just in academia) is that they're often more worried about avoiding blame than dealing with a problem.  This is the job culture people exist in and they adapt by being defensive.  Sad, but often true.

The answerer clearly has no academic experience. If people thought like this, 75% of PhDs would have quit. It's not a job, it's training. 99% of doctors and lawyers would disappear as well; they go into 6-figure debt.

@user71659 The level of debt is clearly something the OP is not comfortable with.  At this stage it seems the OP has a PhD and is doing research.  At this point more money should be coming in than going out or they should at worst be breaking even every month.  When do you think they should stop paying for "training" ?  When they're department heads ?  The reason people leave PhDs is because they're (a) often soul destroying hard work for most people and/or (b) they can't see a viable career financially because working for industry is often a better choice.

@StephenG-HelpUkraine A postdoc is clearly training, is optional, and is effectively the choice of the person. NIH calls them "training grants" under the T-series. If you were really good, you'd go straight into a faculty position from a PhD.

@user71659 Have a look at  the answer from quarague which does indicate why, yes, they should not need to be in debt.   To be blunt the idea that people at this stage of their careers should still be paying for training is ridiculous.  It's a faulty bit of "logic" that drives good people into proper paid employment outside of academia.  This idea someone with a PhD should be treated like cheap labor is so outdated and counterproductive.  I've a young cousin who turned down doing a PhD precisely because he could make real money as a BSc in industry.  Academia lives in a fantasy world now.

@StephenG-HelpUkraine And a good postdoc leads to a tenured position making $200k+ and lifetime employment. Again, your lack of academia experience is evident.

@StephenG-HelpUkraine Another thing to think about. Major US private schools will pay for the college education of the children of faculty. So, professors never worry about college costs and their kids never have student debt. How much is that worth? Are you going to throw that away for a year or two of debt?

@user71659 We could debate this endlessly.  All I will say to you is that "major US private schools" constitute a place a small minority of people will end up in.  And it's not a year or two of debt - it's often the previous 7-plus years of third-level education and costs of living during that.

@StephenG-HelpUkraine There is obviously personal value assessments. What is the intangible value of lifetime employment? What is the value of state  pensions in our world of 401ks? These have to be collected and evaluated. However your proposition of not making money now = bad is an irresponsible oversimplification by ignoring all of this.

@StephenG-HelpUkraine Your viewpoint might have made sense in the recent past, when inflation was low for an extended period.  In normal times and currently, inflation changes.  "Due diligence" is not helpful when inflation increases.  Changing jobs is helpful.

@AnonymousPhysicist I frankly have no idea what you are trying to say.  The OP at the time the question was asked had a net income below zero. Are you implying that rising inflation would improve their situation ?  So what is your meaning with regard to inflation ?  Yes, of course they needed to change jobs or (quickly) negotiate an improved income.  In any case I hope they found a solution that gets them out of debt as soon as possible, because the other thing that rises with inflation is usually the interest rates charged on debts.

@StephenG-HelpUkraine No.  I @ the wrong person.

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin As just mentioned in my mis-addressed comments, I disagree with where you place blame.

@AnonymousPhysicist Thanks.  I was quite baffled there.  Appreciate you clearing that up so quickly.

Third party funding like a Marie-Curie grant come in two basic forms (with lots of variation in the details).

You receive a grant, that is supposed to cover costs for your lab and the people employed in the lab, including you. It is very common that universities take a major cut (on the order of 50%) from these grants for the administrative cost and providing you with space and such.

You receive your personal salary, possibly a little extra for travel expense or for relocation. This should be paid out directly to you and the university does not get a cut. The university agrees to pay for your office and similar costs in exchange for getting you as an employee without having to pay your salary.

I don't know the details of what kind of grant your MC fellowship is but it seems at least possible that you were granted something more like type 2 but the university thinks it is type 1. Unfortunately it is also possible that everything is as it should be and the salaries haven't been adjusted for inflation in recent years. It depends on the details of your fellowship.
Edit: You added the source for the Marie-Curie grants in your questions. If I understand the document correctly, as a postdoc you should get 5080 Euros gross salary plus 600 Euros mobility allowance plus possibly a family allowance (page 86). This does include salary deductions that are usually payed by the employer like some social security deductions. This is modified by the country factor which for the US is 102.3% (page 110). This is supposed to be for your salary, the university is not supposed to deduct anything from that for its own costs. If they do figure out why and try to stop it. For a postdoc this is a very good salary pretty much anywhere in the world. If you do get that, it should cover your living expenses. If it doesn't you need to focus your career away from academia towards maximizing your salary.

@Trunk I don't know whether there are any laws or rules between granting institutions and universities on how much the universities may take.

@Trunk You seem to be making assumptions about these fellowships up and down this thread, many of which are quite inaccurate. On this point, MSCA fellowships provide a maximum monthly contribution to the hosts' indirect costs. They do not cap the grant's contribution to direct salary costs, but these can only be those which are required for employment (so, social security etc.) My experience with the MSCA is that EU's terms favour Fellows at least as strongly as other funders, and e.g. ensured that I didn't lose out due to changes in exchange rates during the MSCA-IF I had some years ago.

@quarague, these awards are administered as subawards, and the IDC is predetermined. We do not receive our normal federal amount.  Trust me, these are a nightmare to administer.  No one I work with in the US likes working with the EU.  A lot of things are restricted, and our hands are tied. US funding has a lot fewer restrictions. I prefer administering US federal funding over any other type.  By far the most straight forward and flexible if part of FDP Clearinghouse.

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin You are sort of sitting at the opposite site of the table here but these restrictions are done on purpose. For a type 2 grant, your university gets the offer of having an excellent researcher just for the price of an office without needing to pay their salary. You still have to pay something but less than you would pay for an employee. That is the idea of the grant, if the university is not willing to pay their share but instead just tries to take a cut from the grant they are just not getting the researcher.

@quarague -- "just the price of an office" is not accurate; these are expensive to administer, and we may not recoup the costs. Academics love to throw around that institutions just take their money for admin costs, which is totally unfair. We are audited on these things!  Academics often act like they know what is going on, however have they read the terms and conditions, all the federal laws, all the university policies, and seen the actual accounting?  I want to ask these people, if it's so easy, why don't you just do all the paperwork yourself?  It's a lot more than people think.

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin There definitely are other costs for the university but you need to make the appropriate comparison. The usual way a university gets a researcher is that they employ them, so the university pays the salary plus all the administrative costs. The grant is an offer than you only pay the administrative costs and the salary is covered by the grant and you still get the benefits of having a researcher working for the university. If you don't want that don't accept grants.

@quarague -- I'm not sure what you are arguing.  Administrators don't get to decide these rules, we execute them.  If the EU restricts the budget, it is what it is, we act ethically.  It doesn't mean these are enjoyable to work on. It may feel great for researchers, but the paperwork can be a nightmare -- that's why there are so many errors on Marie Curie awards. The IDC costs are meant to help offset all the regulations the sponsors require (to pay people like me).  US Federal fellowships are cut into easy buckets that are the same for everyone, which means low IDC; that's not the case here.

FWIW, I just looked at our Danish contract, and it says this, "In the framework of the Fellowship, the Fellow will remain a full-time (Danish university) employee
with appropriate salary and benefits, including worker’s compensation insurance. The
Fellow will be ineligible for benefits at (US University) and shall not receive any funding or other financial support from (US University)."  This is an example of where my hands are tied.  If this person is getting a negative paycheck from this arrangement, I am not really able to help.  I hate saying that to people, but what can I do?

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin My point was that from the perspective of the university these grants are an offer to pay for some but not all costs associated with having a researcher. Other grants offer to pay for all costs. I don't think your Danish employee is anywhere close to a negative paycheck. The MC fellows would get around 74k US$ pre tax annual, how does that compare to your US postdoc salaries?

Your edit here about the fellow getting the 5060 living allowance is incorrect - if you check the following page (87), it says "The living allowance is a gross amount, including compulsory deductions under national law, such as employer and employee social security contributions and direct taxes." So a range of employer costs will come out of that living allowance before it goes to the fellow.

@StephenMcMahon True, I adjusted the phrasing. But note that all these go the government and are at least supposed to directly benefit the employee. They do not go to the university for administrative costs.

@quarague The university has to pay FICA tax, worker's compensation insurance, unemployment insurance. Those clearly can be deducted. Further, some states require paid sick leave, so an accrual has to be made for that. The other key factor is healthcare. The university is required by law to provide healthcare benefits under Obamacare's employer mandate. So my guess is that the university is allowed to deduct the fringe benefits rate, which is typically 20-25% for postdocs.

I'm a Marie Curie fellow in the UK. I'm so sorry you have to go through this; MSCA is one of the highest paid postdoc in the EU, if not the world. That said, the Uni likes to take social security contribution from the grant (i.e. salary). I'll share my experience in the UK. The basic salary was rated at 6k per month. I was getting 3k per month. Some of the deductions were not shown in the pay slip. I asked them for an explanation. Here is an extract from the payroll contact: "Total amount in the agreement 6,026.12 less employer pension 979.74 less employer NI 468.17 = basic salary 4,578.21". Apart from employer's contribution, they deducted employee contribution from my salary as well. This was pension, tax and employee NI. So the take home was reduced to 3k at the end. I asked them why they were deducting employer's contribution, they sent an extract of the employment agreement. It's included in the contract, which obviously I did not read. This is true irrespective of the host institution. There was a really long discussion about this on a Facebook group.
I'm really sorry to hear this. One thing you can do is to contact NCPs. (They are very responsive; also mention your grant ID. They must respond to your queries.). If your host is Italy, Germany etc, find that country's NCP email on MSCA page and ask them if there is a way to fix this. Something thats not clear to me is: There are no social security contribution in the US (insurance + tax. This is what I remember paying in US), if it's still getting deducted at your parent institution (host) - thats completely useless. You can ask them to stop deducting the social contribution when you are away. Does that makes sense ? For example: you are hired by a University in Spain, who pays your salary. They are deducting your social contributions from your salary. Then you move to the US for your secondment, which is 1 year. What's the point of deducting social security in Spain, when you are in the US ? That should give you a surplus money.
You can also ask for reimbursement. You should get your travel reimbursed, visa costs are also reimbursed. I think you can get the rent you paid during your secondment reimbursed (thats quite a lot). (I tried to look this up, I remember reading it somewhere but I couldn't find it now, sorry - it must be in some guidelines). You can also ask your NCP if thats possible. Travel money is separate from your salary as per MSCA grant. The university can't touch it. Like you said, you could top up your salary. (I'm sorry it's still not enough for you.)
You could also stop your pension contribution for a year. I don't pay pension contribution in the UK. They used to deduct employer's and employee's pension contribution out of my salary, which I did not like. You can also send an email to MSCA alumni association. Someone must have dealt with similar problem before. They are usually very helpful. I hope this helps.

"There are no social security contribution in the US" This is not always true. It depends on your visa. If a postdoc is directly employed by the university, they are subject to 7.65% FICA tax, and the same amount charged to the university, which will be taken out as overhead/fringe. The key is international postdocs who maintain  nonresident status are exempt; however if one stays more than 2 calendar years under J-1 and 5 years under other usual nonimmigrant student cases, they lose that exemption. Thus, if the person completed their graduate studies in the US as well, they may pay FICA.

If your take home is ~36k GBP/year ($45.6k), then it's not the highest paid postdoc in the world. In fact, in the US it would be illegal under many circumstances. For example, Washington state requires a minimum of $65k gross by law. In life sciences, the Federal NIH rates, which are probably the most common, range from $56.4-68.6k. I'd say $60's in an average locale to $70s in an expensive locale is normal here. The further trick is to pay directly via a fellowship, which eliminates most overhead and FICA. Take-home effectively can be roughly 90-95% of those numbers.

@user71659 take home and gross pay are not the same; you are comparing 65k gross with 45k take home ($). Gross is 72k GBP pa ($92k), which would not be illegal under any circumstances in the US. Like you said, postdoc salaries are usually around $65k PA with national labs probably paying more than universities.

No, because you deducted employer's contributions in your "gross". Gross pay in the US does not include employer's contributions/fringe/overhead. If you want to figure those in, add ~20% for fringe and ~50% for overhead. If it really was $92k gross, then your take-home would be roughly $65k as an employee, $70 as a fellow.

A note on MCSA terminology - the scheme does support secondments for which expenses can be claimed, but the outgoing phase of a MSCA-IF is not considered a secondment, so rent and other costs there are expected to come out of your main salary.

That seems like a pretty large pension contribution even for that salary, have you opted in to additional voluntary contributions?

No. I opted out completely.

@ghostparticle the option to opt out pension seems to be very practical. Why did you choose this? Even when you opt out, you would receive 3k (euros)?

@kstn Correct. Let me share some numbers (￡) - total amount in agreement: 6026.12 less employer pension 979.74 less employer NI 468.17 = 4578.21 basic salary.
basic salary - 448.66 (USS pension) - 616.20 (Tax) - 399.91 (Employee NI) = 3113.44 GBP.
This means 1428.38 paid into the pension. After opting out, my salary was around ￡3700 per month. That was still 600 quids more.

@kstn That said, I did not have long term plans to remain in the UK. I could transfer the money to a different country. After having dealt with the bureaucracy in UK, its really not wroth it imo.

@ghostparticle will you get back these 600 later (after completing the fellowship)?

@kstn I dont understand. My salary increased by 766 (correction: salary was 3879, thats nearly 800 increase not 600, sorry). Your pension contribution is not taxed, if you opt out, the taxes go up. I think its still worth it, if you dont plan to stay in that country in the long run or you need more money to manage your expenses at the moment.

@ghostparticle I thought if you opt out pension then the salary increased by employer pension 979.74 plus 448.66 (USS pension) = 1428.38￡. I do not get why only 766.

Although I can cover my cost of living I had the same negative experience. This was not communicated and in fact I remember asking what my net salary will be. The amount I get and the number that they were suggesting differs by 30%. Now they do not remember their own words. I would not have taken this “prestigious” fellowship if I knew. Please speak up so that the next generation doesn’t fall in the same trap. I burned some bridges but this disrespect I can’t tolerate.

While receiving the scholarship, are you allowed to do part time job ?

Not if you work on it 100%. Why does that matter anyway?

If the amount is not enough, you'll need a part time job. "cover my cost of living" sometimes is not enough for other costs, e.g. you may need to purchase an expensive book. Inflation is still rising, we don't know what will be the rent next year.

I see. I think before taking on a second job one should join industry.


text:
A jerk is becoming a professor, should I alert their faculty?
During the early stage of my research career many years ago, as a graduate student, I met this young and bright but yet very manipulative PhD student. Let's call the person A.
At the beginning A was cordial and told me to work on the same type of research as them. After I decided to carve out my own path, A for some reason either decided that my focus was not as esteemed/prestigious/intellectually challenging as theirs, or that perhaps I am not cut out to be a researcher, so A took every opportunity to mock my research focus in front of other senior students in the lab. I cannot delve into details but at that time I saw all the signs of A being a sociopathic bully or at least an elitist.

For example, A would probe me and other students to see if we have
some deficiency in our knowledge. Afterwards, A will make a huge deal
out of it.
A also has unrealistic high standard for work that they imposes on
everyone. Anyone who doesn't conform to their schedule would be
openly mocked or even socially ostracized.
A has this very inflexible way of deciding who is worth talking to
and who isn't. A will respect anyone who has a big name and deride
people who are junior to them.
Because A was productive, therefore my then supervisor tolerated A.

I recently found out that A is becoming a professor at another (better ranked) school. Is there anything that anyone can do at this stage to prevent a jerk from becoming a prof?

Using a letter for a person is unnecessarily tiresome to read, in particular if you are talking only about one other person and that letter is A (which can be confused with the indefinite article). Please [edit] your question to either use pronouns and similar or just call them Alice, Bob or whatever you like.

I feel like a very similar question was asked here years ago---does anyone else remember?

@Kimball - yes, I feel like there were several "should I warn a university not to hire my enemy" questions....the only one I can find now is this one about opposing affirmative action.

I changed "sociopath" to "jerk" in the title (and removed the comments discussing this) since you have not provided any evidence / confirmation that "A" is actually diagnosed with this medical condition. If you can confirm that "A" actually does suffer from this condition, please [edit] your post to state this.

Be careful, your nemesis may sue you for defamation.  Also, birds of feathers flock together.   Your nemesis may have found a home.

The first part of this answer of mine applies perfectly here.

I doubt you will succeed in stopping A's appointment at A's university. You would however do considerable harm to yourself. First, for a non-psychologist, non-therapist, non-psychiatrist to make a diagnosis of sociopath is rather presumptive. So, please do not do this. Second, if A is not a socio-path but rather was a "yerk", know that people can and sometimes do change. Third, academia just like politics favors persons with big egos, because big egos are sometimes needed for success. Your intervention would make you in all probability look vindictive and petty-minded.
It is not fun to see someone who mistreated you be successful, but if you hold on to your pain, you will never free yourself from it.

Narcissism helps in academia and business, too. You're more likely to promote yourself.

I recently found out that A is becoming a professor at another (better ranked) school. Is there anything that anyone can do at this stage to prevent a jerk from becoming a prof?

No.  Once the contract is signed, it is final.
Trying to harm a colleague's job search is highly unprofessional behavior.  Do not do it.  Do not spread rumors.
Abusive behavior towards you should be addressed by your supervisor, the perpetrator's supervisor, or where applicable the legal system.