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What to do if a colleague plans to submit the paper you worked on together without your name on it?
I have been working with another postdoc on a paper, here is what happened: I presented a work of mine before it was published (but it is in my thesis and on arxiv) and he decided he will use the same exact model with a slight change. I have talked it out with him and finally with my lab adviser as he was not collaborating, and we decided to send the paper as coauthors after our adviser mediated the issue (though it was bumpy), even sorted out whose name goes first etc.
The methodology belongs to me and the application area is the same (topic), although he has written all the code practically (he said he wanted to learn and build a more modular code etc) I did contribute by writing small scripts but he ended up not using them.
My advisor has asked their collaborating institute whether I could join (the irony that my methodology is stolen but I need a pass to join the project) and they did approve it (I have all exchanges and emails). I spent countless hours discussing and working on the project with him, as he is working on another project I have little clue about the execution but he had to travel often and he made a presentation to the partner institute. I also suspect that my adviser got the patent of the code on his name as I have noticed he took my name out of contacts on github recently. I had not asked to be in the copyrights of his code but he has told me that I was going to be there relating the model. My adviser only wants to please the partner institution I am afraid. I was away for a week and before that my colleague and I saw each other very briefly and all sounded to be on track. He has run over time for the completion of the project so he is not working here anymore technically. Today I get no reply from him on multiple attempts and I learnt that he has removed his computer's hard drive and my adviser is off for vacation for an unknown time.
I suspect that my colleague will try to send off the paper we were supposed to write together without my name on it, I have email exchanges as proof but most relied on my adviser, whom I don't know if I should trust after the copyright issue. What do I do if he sends the paper without my name? Do I write to the editors? His partner institution? Is there a board for this?

Without reading a wall of text - do some editing with paragraphs... But if they do submit then contact the editor with evidence that you contributed. Do keep all documentation, edits files etc

In the worst case maybe upload your version/results on arxiv.org and tell him you will do!? The editor is no judge nor Sherlock Holmes and maybe even a colleague/friend of your colleague...the questions here are often really funny :-)

@MichaelSchmidt I am not sure how this is supposed to be funny but glad to make you laugh. I have been a reviewer and an editor so it is not like I have delusions about them being superheroes.

Editor of a well known journal can take some measures, reject the paper, put the author in a black list, give a warning, do something. I was wondering if there is a consensus or a way to handle these issues, there should be.

I was forwarded a review by the editor of a journal, where my submission got major revision, then reject because I didn't revise it but resubmitted, and a person who was present at my thesis work presentation stole it and resubmitted as his own. The editor had found his way. Also I know cases where the person submitted was warned and their future submissions were probably not taken into consideration after that. Seriously there should be measures to discourage people from being so lax about stealing.

I just wouldn't know where he is submitting until it might be too late, and if the reviewers are not familiar with my work they might give it a pass. I also think maybe it is better to notify the partner institution, who would volunteer to be in this situation? It is discrediting. I just don't know. I can't put my version on arxiv cause it would be a similar attempt as his, besides I don't have final results.

It's more funny to me how some poeple aiming for a scientific career behave...lying, stealing...in the end this all comes out, science is finding the truth, with such behaviour you will never become a great scientist, but academia is no perfect world. My former comment is serious, maybe your only option is to publish the results on arxiv with him as co-author or never work again with him and learn from this. There "should be measures", well academia is a system of trust, not a judicial system. Setting up black lists etc. becomes complicated with so much alternative journals.

there is a reason scientists often only work together with colleagues they trust or in collaboratively funded official projects. My advise is to learn from this and move on. Sorry I have no better one, but I think there is none...

@MichaelSchmidt I did not chose to collaborate with him until he decided he will work on this project with an identical to a T( unpublished) method to mine ( right after I presented it in lab) without ever discussing it with me. Some people think if you write the code, it is not stealing sadly u.u So i had to compromise on sharing a paper and even that was difficult to sort it out because of my adviser's lax behavior towards him. He is in the same lab, one would think you won't have these problems. Anyway..

I have been working with another postdoc on a paper, here is what happened: I presented a work of mine before it was published (but it is in my thesis and on arxiv) and he decided he will use the same exact model with a slight change

There is a misunderstanding about "publishing": you probably mean that it was not published in a journal/conference, but apparently you did publish your model, which means two things:

Your authorship on this is established
Anybody can reuse it, provided they cite your work appropriately

The methodology belongs to me

Not really: yes you are the established author of the methodology, but it is now available for anyone to reuse it, as per the usual academic process (the only exception would be if you patented the work prior to publication).

I have talked it out with him and finally with my lab adviser as he was not collaborating, and we decided to send the paper as coauthors after our adviser mediated the issue (though it was bumpy), even sorted out whose name goes first etc.

This is what gives you a (moral) right to be a co-author for this particular work.

My advisor has asked their collaborating institute whether I could join (the irony that my methodology is stolen but I need a pass to join the project) and they did approve it (I have all exchanges and emails)

Avoid using the word "steal" if you published it: if all that the other author did was reading your thesis/paper, the only requirement is for him to cite the origin of the work.

I also suspect that my adviser got the patent of the code on his name as I have noticed he took my name out of contacts on github recently.

Are you talking about an actual patent? If yes, for what? If this is about your methodology which is already published or about a code publicly available on github (under a particular license maybe?), it's unlikely that a patent would be granted, but IANAL.

Today I get no reply from him on multiple attempts and I learnt that he has removed his computer's hard drive and my adviser is off for vacation for an unknown time

Multiple attempts over how long? If it's only a few days there's no reason to panic, he might be busy. Did you agree on a method to write the paper together, a venue to submit it or a deadline?

I suspect that my colleague will try to send off the paper we were supposed to write together without my name on it, I have email exchanges as proof but most relied on my adviser, whom I don't know if I should trust after the copyright issue. What do I do if he sends the paper without my name? Do I write to the editors? His partner institution? Is there a board for this?

You should rely primarily on your advisor, and if they don't cooperate you should seek support in your institution, e.g. head of department or ombudsman.

While I understand anyone in the world can read my thesis or arXiv paper, use my methodology and cite it, I do stand by my view in the case when a colleague from the lab decides to work on a paper with the same methodology, on the same problem, on the same dataset while they well know that you are in the process of trying to get it published (peer reviewed journal). The problematic part is us being in the same lab. How ethical is it to submit basically the same thing your colleague does while you know they are already in the process of submitting? And leaving them out on top?

And of course he has flaked out, or submitted by himself, I don't know, I have got a copy of the code , made changes, running tests, wrote and shared the paper so far but I will need his approval to submit. He did respond a few times after that/kind of buying time but he is no longer responsive (last 2 weeks). I can't reach the results on the cluster, errors in the code. Well he was not able to get a patent, but he tried without involving me. My PI says he won't contact him but I should. No idea where this is going.

well thanks for this part -> "You should rely primarily on your advisor, and if they don't cooperate you should seek support in your institution, e.g. head of department or ombudsman."  Though I am not sure if they would want to be involved.

Also, citing works on arXiv or citing peoples' thesis are not supervised, in principle you can get away with not citing these works as they are not peer reviewed publications. A person would have to sue you to prove their point. However, it is not ethical, so you don't just go around try to replicate arXiv papers and send them to journals.

@dusa given that this has become a conflict, it is important to find a mediator: normally it's your supervisor's role but you seem to suspect them as well. you're saying your head of department or ombudsman might not want to be involved: it's not a matter of whether they want or not, it's their responsibility. imho you shouldn't try to solve things by yourself. anyway even if you contact a publisher the first thing they will do is contact your institution to check your claim.

"The problematic part is us being in the same lab. How ethical is it to submit basically the same thing your colleague does while you know they are already in the process of submitting? And leaving them out on top?" It is certainly disrespectful and sloppy but it's not unethical as far as I know. why did you submit your paper on arXiv if you wanted to retain the exclusivity of the work?

"Also, citing works on arXiv or citing peoples' thesis are not supervised, in principle you can get away with not citing these works as they are not peer reviewed publications." You seem to misunderstand how this works: the fact that a publication is not peer-reviewed doesn't mean anybody can plagiarize it. An academic doing that would be at risk of being fired by their institution, whether the source is peer-reviewed or not.

" However, it is not ethical, so you don't just go around try to replicate arXiv papers and send them to journals". Normally a good journal should reject a publication which already exists on arXiv, unless the paper brings an additional new contribution.

Normally yes, ask me about this other story :) TLDR, I submitted a paper to the journal which returned as major revision then reject, about half a year later I was asked to review this paper which was majorly dependent on my work (without citing it), and it was submitted by a visitor of our lab who also happened to attend my presentation and follow me on researchgate.

I would like to give more credit but apart from the methodology, the keywords, phrases and key arguments were the same as well, and he clearly wrote it as if it were the first time this method was used. I contacted the editor and they made him cite it and edit the paper in a way that acknowledges previous work. I am really surprised that his institution didn't take further actions.

Because the editor passed my comment as is which was very clear about how it was close to a T. He works with a famous prof. too, some institutions/journals are lax, I suppose which wasn't the case at my PhD institution (as it should be)

So, I naturally get paranoid, if the editor didn't ask me to review I wouldn't know, and maybe he would get published because noone else pointed that out. It was a tier 2 journal btw, it is considered credible despite not being tier 1.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

There are two issues here, one is that your "colleague" is engaging in plagiarism. This is a big no-no for most if not all journals. Just being accused of plagiarism can end someones academic career. As such, I am surprised anyone would do this so blatantly. If you know which journal the submission might go to, I would contact the editor in chief there and talk to him. With the method being in your thesis and on arxiv, you have a very good starting point in proving that the method belongs to you and the other guy is just a leech. (There are ways around this by properly attributing, but I doubt he does that)
The second issue is one of copyright. If you worked on code and wrote part of it, then your advisor has no right to remove your name. That's tantamount to stealing. And there are some nice fines for that, including jail time in severe cases. I would talk to your advisor about this, explain that it's not ok to remove your name. After that discussion, you should put it into writing and send it to him on paper, so he cannot refute anything later.
If your advisor or colleague are not cooperating in this, I strongly suggest to contact your universities legal department. Most universities do not like their students work being stolen, not even by their own professors.


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How to submit paper if the student has graduated (and does not return emails)
I was working with a student of mine on a paper, and we completed about %90+ of the work - implementation, experiments and paper writing. He had to graduate before his student visa was up, so after he defended I signed his thesis forms. I had asked him to share the latest version of the code and improve the paper to submit but he basically disappeared and does not answer my emails. I also noticed that he stopped sharing the earlier versions of the code (on Google Drive which I ran on Colab, it seems I did not save copies). He was a student I trusted and of good character so I never thought he would just disappear. Obviously, the way he behaves makes me skeptical, and I intend to repeat experiments and a new student agreed to take the work, even though it will be a great loss of time and effort to implement everything from scratch.
Moreover, it is basically this student's thesis work and I want to submit the paper with his name on it (first author) but I may need his approval or even a copyright declaration form to publish. How can I proceed in this case? How can I salvage the paper in a situation like this?
EDIT:
I am asking what people do in these situations, and how they salvage the work. I am not invalidating his contribution or authorship. This must be pretty common but it is the first time I am facing this.
I have projects where students work together, and our school mandates students to "publish" in order to graduate. Please note that this could potentially be very problematic for student co-authors as it could threaten their graduation.
Go easy with the assumptions, I had weekly meetings with the student to advise him, the idea was mine and I was very involved in paper writing and editing. I just did not do a good job with versioning/keeping copies of the code. I could potentially replicate everything but it does not technically make him less of a co-author as far as I am aware. Also, as the school requested upon graduation we signed a copyright form - legally we are both co-authors of his thesis work (which the paper is derived from).

that is great that you decided to replicate the experiment.

If you are trying to contact the student on the university email address, perhaps they no longer have access to it after graduation?

Is the student still alive? Can you reach the student's emergency contact?

@Allure Emergency contacts are for emergency cases. "Student graduated, left, and took their codes with them" does not sound as an emergency to me.

Does this answer your question? Does a supervisor have right to submit paper without consents of coauthor students?

@Snijderfrey No, I wouldn't submit if the authors were clearly opposed to submit or needed more time to work on the paper.

I leave here a helpful point for the future casual reader: the student is a co-author of the study.
The student is not explicitly giving consent to publication of the work. It is a pity, but it is what it is.

@Allure: There are places where institutions keep information about emergency contacts of students??

@O.R.Mapper Sure, there are (speaking from experience).

Comment- look for student on LinkedIn or similar! Ask other students if they have an alternative email for that student (gmail) or phone number.

My university deletes student emails upon graduation. This would also be why a google drive disappeared if it was through the university and the university email.

I have emailed him via his personal gmail address but no luck, I think social media is a bit of a private territory but I will keep it in mind, thanks. @Dawn

Leaving out some extreme scenarios, there is a chance that he is not contacting me because he was supposed to work on paper edits and probably does not want to deal with the work as I asked him to send the code.

I will send another email just to ask his permission on a future submission. I am not hopeful though.

I would suggest considering (even in the question text, or a new post) a corollary / simplified version of the question. For example: if your student had (single-handedly) proved P=NP but then refused to publish and ghosted you, what can you do? Publishing without the student is ethically fraught, but so is sitting on such an important discovery that might not be independently rediscovered for centuries.

Exactly, and it does not have to be a big discovery really. All authors dedicate their time and effort, and novel ideas. The student may not understand the importance of continuity but it has a toll on the field, the advisor's career, and other students' graduation. It may impact funding sources whether government or industry. Thanks, I will try to open another post.

Also, I am pretty sure a lot of people face this. When I was a student one of my advisors submitted without my name on it (I had switched to another institution) and one of them submitted with my name on it, and neither of these advisors bothered to contact me even though they had my personal email. Just trying to do better but being ghosted by the student is making it difficult.

Actually there isn't much you can do but keep trying to contact the student. You need their permission to publish and to include their name.
You can, however complete the work alone and only require their permission to publish the result as co-authors.
I wonder if it is possible that they aren't avoiding you, but aren't getting your messages. Perhaps the university has some alternate contact information for them. Or even another student.
Publishers will require permission from all authors. It isn't an option.
Even reimplementing everything isn't really a solution, if the student's ideas are still in the work. You can't escape that and avoid plagiarism. It is good to do, but you still need their permission to publish. Keep trying.

I wrote to him saying that a new student will take up the work but, of course, we will send the paper with his name, I asked him to share the code. He did not reply to the email, I am not sure if he will ever reply, even if for the permission only.
I use other channels - his personal gmail address as well but to no avail.

Am I to trash all the work then? The ideas are mine but he implemented, experimented, and wrote a thesis so we would be both authors and copyright holders.  I know normally he should be a co-author, but if he never gets in touch, is my share of work going to waste too? I spent countless hours advising, debugging, writing the paper etc.

I think you know what is right.

I am not debating what is right, I am just asking what people do in these situations to salvage a paper while not compromising integrity.

Sadly, not everyone will behave properly. I know you aren't debating what is right and have a good ethical sense. That is why I commented as I did. Keep trying.

Although it is obviously advisable to get consent for your work from all authors, it seems that at this point one co-author is not responding, not co-operative to an extreme level, and as far as we know, theoretically at least "is not even alive".
In cases where a co-author is deceased, it is still possible to publish a joint paper (this has been done. Edit: getting permission from their estate it seems). So in these cases at least, no real permission from all authors have been obtained.
My advice would be then:

Send a clear message to the student that you are about to publish the work soon with his/her name as co-author.
Wait a while (e.g., one month), and send another reminder.
Wait another week, and send an urgent reminder about this to the student.

If the student does not want to publish, or has other plans and he is deliberately avoiding you, he/she will probably reply.
Otherwise, if the student does not reply, go ahead and submit the paper. Explaining that one author has disappeared in your cover letter to the editor-in-chief.
Comment: my assumption here and everywhere is that deliberately ignoring legitimate e-mails of colleagues is an ethical breach in any professional setting. If the student does not want to publish the paper they must let their co-authors know that.

Actually, for a deceased author, you need to contact their estate. You still can't assume permission to publish.

@Buffy Okay, that is a good idea: the OP can contact their estate.

And no, you can't publish even after carrying out your three suggestions (bullet points). The publisher's hands are tied, actually. Submission to a reputable publisher would be pointless.

My estimation is that OP would not get to that point: the student will reply, and if not OP should try contact "estate", or anything like that.

I am sorry, English is not my native language, what is the "estate" here? Like any legal person that might represent him?

When a person dies, all their properties, real and virtual, go to their heirs subject to the conditions of a last will and testament. The recipients of those properties are collectively "their estate" which is normally managed by one person who can speak for the estate. (informal description, not a legal definition and maybe just US terminology). That person is the "executor of the estate". But this only applies to a deceased person.

Alright, thank you.

Please note one thing: you do not correct any ethical breach by doing another ethical breach (i.e. publishing the work of someone without their consent).

"Explaining that one author has disappeared in your cover letter to the editor-in-chief."
This is a good suggestion: you can find out if the editor is a competent person, therefore refusing to accept your submission because you do not have explicit confirmation from all the co-authors. Please note the student is a co-author of the study and the student is not explicitly giving consent to publication of the work. It is a pity, but it is what it is.

Once shared, ideas are worth nothing. On their own, ideas can't be patented or protected. What matters is your ability to implement your own idea towards a recognised form of an output (paper, patent, etc). When you take more senior roles and no longer have time to implement ideas yourself, what matters is your ability to manage your team towards the development of your ideas in a supportive way while still ensuring the results.
In the described scenario, you have not involved yourself in development and testing of the code to the degree that you did not even have a copy of the code stored on your own device. I have to assume that you also do not have a documentation for the code beyond of what's described in the PhD thesis. If you have never tested the code yourself, how are you sure the results in the PhD are reliable and are actually produced by the code and are not simply faked?
You will likely want to reevaluate your approach to managing your academic team and the details of your supervision process based on this experience. Good luck.

I had weekly meetings, sometimes more often as needed. He shared an earlier version which I was able to run on Colab but I have noticed that he removed the files so I can't access them anymore. I was involved, I just did not do a good job versioning / storing the code. You are assuming a lot here, just know that it is not the case. Running the code doe snot equal to running ALL tests, which I doubt any advisor does.

Also, the school literally makes both students and advisors sign a copyright form, so my involvement is protected.

This answer is brutal, syntethic and (unfortunately for OP) sharp to the point. OP may feel there are a lot of assumptions, but if any the things were addressed by OP before this situation arose, OP would not brood in thinking "I spent countless hours advising, debugging, writing the paper etc." (see comment https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/189224/how-to-submit-paper-if-the-student-has-graduated-and-does-not-return-emails#comment510275_189225 )

I am not sure what is so inviting about my message that invites some people to make baseless assumptions but this is a very emotional comment, and does not really attempt to answer my question.

The rest of this conversation has been moved to chat. Please recall that we can only move the comments to chat once.

My two cents: even if OP does as this answer suggests (e.g., having version control and running the code themselves), it's still possible that OP's student could say "I've graduated, I don't want my name on this paper and do not consent to being an author." In this case, OP would be in the same situation they are now, and asking the same question. In this case, your suggestion (now moved to chat) that OP could cite unpublished work seems very useful; you might consider expanding this and editing this into your answer.

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Seeking advice about teaching track vs research
I applied to a university that has overall okay world rankings in UK (though I believe it is R2), and seems like a good place to work at as an assistant prof, however it is teaching track. Currently, I am at a research university (R1) however its overall rankings are pretty low worldwide (and not among the elite in my country) I have a research background so I was not too familiar when I applied to this teaching position, I did apply because I really enjoyed teaching this year, and I felt like I might be stuck at this university I am at currently (I used to get better offers when I was doing research abroad but now I don't get callbacks from better universities).
I am conflicted however, because I love research and the reason I want to move to other universities are the better research capabilities (students/facilities/support etc). Will a teaching track be the end of research career? During my interviews I sensed that it was not for me, and I sensed that I was not exactly what they would be looking for (though with some training for education I would be a good fit). Now I got the offer and they told me I did very well. Does it make sense to choose this university because of its overall standings even if it is a teaching track? I feel like I will still have at the back of my head to apply to research track positions and that maybe it is early for me to commit to the teaching track only.
What do you think? Would a transition be possible? How is a teaching track viewed for research? Or would that be a bad move? I made some mistakes with the postdoctoral lab I chose (I couldn't get any papers out due to project/data problems, I was left alone, I didn't enjoy the people mostly, didn't know the language etc. and it was a much lower ranking university than my other offers - I took it because I thought it was a supportive/collaborative environment (it was not) and I could continue working on the same topic as my thesis) and then I switched to this university because I simply wanted away, thinking I could apply to better universities but now I feel stuck here as well) I don't want to make more mistakes. What are the future aspects? I need honest opinions. This is not to say one track is better or worse, but how it would work out for a person who actually wants to be in research?

Does a "teaching track" position lead to tenure? In the US, some do not, even (especially?) at quite prestigious places.

@Buffy It is tenure track (also fulltime, forever) (UK) but you are set for the teaching track for good.

This is a personal decision. My solution might be different from yours. But it isn't trivial to move from a teaching position to a research one. I don't guess this is your last opportunity. You might want to discuss your concerns with the place making you the offer.

@Buffy Thanks for the reply, I am not sure I understand what you mean with "it is not trivial"? Can you elaborate? Are you saying that it would be difficult? Really I think I am a bit lost in translation, sorry

Just that the path from a teaching position to a research position is harder to manage than the opposite. Your own experience shows this. Some people are wildly happy teaching. Others not. Would you consider getting "stuck" in a teaching position to be a good thing or a bad thing. Lots to think about, but think long term.

@Buffy I noticed that I am happy teaching and to my surprise I got great feedback as well, but I definitely don't want to do teaching only and I like research more. If things could be ideal I would like to go for a research position, and yes I feel like I would feel stuck teaching only, at least at this point. This is why I wonder if it would be a mistake, if it is hard to switch to a research position later. How does the uni rankings make a difference (teaching track at a globally better uni (r2) or research track at a globally low ranking but locally R1 uni ?)

Be aware that there's no such thing as tenure at UK universities (and hasn't been since the 80s, thanks Maggie...)

Make a difference for what?  Generally, the academic job market is such that you should assume any job offer is the last job offer you will ever get.

@Rdd really? I had the impression that all positions were permanent? How often are the contracts renewed then? It is not a fixed term position.

@dusa "permanent" and "tenured" are different - tenure in the US means (I understand) that it's virtually impossible for the university to fire you, and you have a great deal of freedom over what you do academically. Permanent positions in the UK come with the risk of redundancy or losing your job through perceived underperformance etc (see https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/academics-turn-down-university-leicester-5436749 for an example).

"R2", "teaching track"... these terms don't mean anything in the UK. What is your actual job title? Is the university Russell Group?

@astronat It is lecturer - I was told equivalent of asst prof. (teaching route), no it is not Russell Group

I tried writing an answer but it does seem quite... opinion based. Basically, in a teaching position, you'll have to do your own research as an extracurricular activity, as it will not be accounted for in your workload. This is very hard. On the other hand, you'll have a permanent position rather than fixed-time contract, and you can take your time (dangerous...) You're more likely to get research support if you find a good postdoc - and quality of recent work will "cover" your long postdoc duration (usually a negative). But a bad postdoc with low outputs might close additional doors.

If you want to get a research position, you need to get your research outputs out. Both of your options (trying to do it on the side while teaching; or looking for and securing a good research postdoc with a so-so profile) seem difficult. (And additionally, one is secure right now, and the other is "looking for"). You'll need to decide which of those challenges are you more prepared to tackle

@penelope Thanks for your answer. I feel like I was not guided well particularly for career aspects during phd and post doc, so it means a lot. And also sort of the reason why I am learning everything head on I guess. Really appreciate it.

Do not take a teaching job if you do not want to teach.  You will harm the students.
Pure teaching positions do not usually lead to research positions; it is not impossible, but it is less common.

Honestly I don't know why people say this. I love teaching and I got great feedback (to my surprise as well) from my students. Also I was told I did really well. One thing does not exclude the other. It is just a matter of what I want to pursue in the end, so thanks for the latter part of your answer.

@dusa People say that because many top researchers (and also from my own experience)  simply neglect their teaching duties.  They don't prepare and respond to student questions.  This is because they spend 100% of their time on research.  Also, some universities do not reward teaching.

@Prof.SantaClaus It really does not justify the accusatory tone of the message though.

@dusa It's not accusatory; it's just ethical advice.  Your question seemed to imply you only care about research.  I'm pleased that is not the case.

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What to do when the reviewer is wrong about your paper's scope, technically inaccurate, and clearly haven't read your rebuttals
You might think the title is a bit of an exaggeration, however this is exactly what has happened.
Note: No, I can't find my answer on How to React to Incorrect Claims by Reviewers? as it addresses the rebuttals/revisions but my question is about what to do after the final decision. (no rebuttal chance)
The reviewer can not differentiate X from Y, is technically wrong and obviously have no in-depth expertise, no let me put it this way even an undergrad knows X from Y, they suggested this is not the first paper using Y in A, when my paper is using X in B (totally different methodology and scope and even the problem addressed).
Moreover, they told me they think the format of my abstract is "extremely odd" because it is divided in 4 sections and they haven't seen it anywhere when it is the author's guidelines, and I sent them the link to the author guidelines and the template file, also copy/pasted that part and included in rebuttal -  and they wrote they "still think it is extremely odd and they haven't seen it elsewhere".
After receiving my first reviews and submitted a complete rebuttal making changes to answer ALL questions, revised writing, added supplementary materials, I was still waiting to hear from the journal after almost 3 months (one week short) for revision - I am a reviewer for the same journal and I am asked to submit reviews in 3 weeks!! so I asked them why it was taking so long, and in a few days I get the reviews and the reject.
The other reviewer's first review was "the technical writing is weak" - this was ALL, no details, no directions - I made substantial changes and wrote very much in detail, the math, the narrative and they wrote "I should reorganize and submit as new" with no details, no directions.
I feel so frustrated, I had an experience like this with the same journal before and got an even worse one who said "the paper was clearly written by a native speaker and that native speaker should help the other revise" - I wrote the whole paper! They also wrote some technical claims about my methodology which was plain wrong.
AND! again, it was also the same - I asked them why it was taking so long (over 4 months after my revision), and in a few days I get the reviews and the reject. Moreover, someone had snatched my exact methodology and used for the same problem and submitted to that journal later. As a reviewer I see papers being accepted all the time with much less novelty and technical writing.
I really don't understand how the editor even lets this happen, the part about the abstract's format made its way to the both reviews! Even after my correction. The reviewer clearly thinks my paper is on something else entirely and lacks expertise.
How can I refute this? Can I refute this? are they doing this on purpose to gatekeep me?
there are not many journals in my field, because this one took so long I couldn't make it to other major conferences, and now I wanted to submit to another journal which is a bit different in scope and is much harder to get into -but- I am not even sure I can because my journal submission here is also accepted as a paper (first version) -but- is not published yet (so I can't submit to another journal because I would need to make a reference to the paper version). Also these are all supposedly Q1 journals.
Should I submit to the same journal and hope there will be reviewers with some common sense? Would I be rejected right away? Considering how slow they have been (7.5 months for these kind of reviews! I doubt they will be kind to answer my emails)

The reads like a rant, not a real question. There is probably nothing you can do to refute it other than write a paper that meets their standards and requirements.

No, on the contrary, we didn't think it is an exaggeration; because most of us faced with a similar situation

@Buffy I did write my rebuttal addressing ALL points made, and I didn't just answered the questions, I made the changes too. Am I to follow the author guidelines or keep guessing what the incompetent reviewer makes up in their mind the format to be?

@onurcanbektas How did you deal with this? I am still in disbelief these reviews passed the editor's desk.

While I would bet this might be the rant of an average student receiving a regular quality review, I would not be surprised to see this rant as a result of a very lazy reviewer. Maybe the person asked a student of his to perform the review on his behalf. If you are willing to bet your reputation on the case being the alter rather than the former, write a letter to the editor of a journal. Be very polite and suggest that he sends your work to someone that can dedicate more effort into the review.

The reviewer is clueless about author's guidelines and thinks graphical convolutional neural networks are the same as convolutional neural networks, and didn't even get the problem I am working on despite it being on the title. It is unbelivable but it is what it is, Thanks for your advise though, I think I will do that. I did write a quick response pointing the flaws of the reviews but didn't ask for new reviewers.

They are clueless yet arrogant to say they "still" think it is extremely odd even after I send them author guidelines, so excuse my rant here.

The editor controls the publication and the reviewers. You can't do much if you don't satisfy them. Arguing isn't a solution. Sad as that is, it is a fact of life.

I would ask others who have published with this journal what their experience was. Perhaps this is an issue with a weak editor picking low-quality reviewers. Perhaps the journal as a whole needs to be crossed off your list. If you are truly in a small field, you and your peers are likely to know most of the editors.

This has happened to me many times.  Usually it happens when a paper is sent to someone who does not do the same type of work, or belongs to a different community, or has never published anything of high quality.

@Dawn thank you, I am one of the reviewers and I always try to do decent work, also for the papers I was assigned - I would be able to read other reviewer's comments and they were decent with no major problems such as this one. Sometimes there are technically weak reviews but they usually give a pass with not many remarks. I am even thinking I should change my field to be honest! This is a journal very fitting in scope, is Q1 - but honestly yes, compared to other journals, they are not the most professional reviewers out there. I also suspect a lot of COI.

@Prof.SantaClaus When I receive one out of my scope, I immediately refuse to review, and if I happened to accept but feel outdated etc. I make an effort to read references, state-of-the-art etc. I wish they would too but you are possibly right, but they don't even check the guideline I send them in rebuttals and think it is "still extremely odd", no words. But how did you deal with this? Did you take any action?

@jakebeal Thanks the link is useful! But it is about rebuttals / revisions, my question is after the final decision (with no second rebuttal chance).

@dusa Unfortunately, there is nothing I could do.   My paper got rejected and I submitted it to a better (higher IF) journal and got accepted there.  I now avoid that particular journal, and no longer submit any papers to it nor accept any review requests.  My advice: always accept a reviewer's comment with a big grain of salt!

Thanks, the problem is I can't submit to another journal because this one accepted my first version as a paper conference earlier, I would need a reference to the paper published so that I can publish to another journal. Also, thanks for noting the reviewer detail, I too am thinking I will not accept review requests from this journal anymore. I have reviewed many papers only to receive this one...

Also what kind of conference charges you the same rate at a virtual one. Never again after this, but I want to refute / make it known at least. Why isn't there a mediating organization for this?

@dusa I believe the answers in the linked question pertain equally to your case.

@jakebeal It doesn't say anything about whether I can refute in case of a final decision and this is primarily what I am asking on the grounds of poor reviewing. It doesn't mention this at all.

@dusa You almost certainly will not be able to change the editor's mind, because they have already judged the reviews sufficiently acceptable to make a decision. While you might be able to appeal to the chief editor, this is unlikely to change anything either. From the way in which you have presented your story here, however, I suspect that you may have some significant flaws in your presentation that you are not currently aware of and that are limiting the accessibility of your work.

I agree with "move on". Most of the problems here are with the editor and/or editorial staff, not with the reviewers. That is, the reviews may indeed be bad or slow, but since this is common (as @Bryan Krause says, or following Sturgeon's law, "90% of everything is crap"), it is the editor's sole purpose to (1) pick reviewers who are likely to be timely and give good reviews, (2) nag them if they are slow, if necessary seeking out new reviewers (this responsibility may be shared with editorial staff), (3) adjudicate bad reviews. If the reviews are bad it is the editor's responsibility to recognize it - either (hopefully) up front, or (if necessary) when the author complains. If the reviewers give a mixture of useful and useless (incorrect, irrelevant, etc.) advice, the editor is supposed to let the author know which reviewer comments to respond to and which they can ignore.
Unfortunately, the editor is the final arbiter unless they have done something truly egregious — in the category of misconduct, not just incompetence and/or irresponsibility —  in which case you can appeal up the chain of command at the journal (editor in chief, editorial board, etc.). But it sounds, if everything you've said is correct, as though this is run-of-the-mill incompetence. You should probably move on.

By the way,

my journal submission here is also accepted as a paper (first version) -but- is not published yet (so I can't submit to another journal because I would need to make a reference to the paper version)

this isn't entirely clear to me, but nothing prevents you from referencing "Doe et al, Journal of Whatever (in press)" in your submission — this is not the same as referencing unpublished material. (You may want to include the final preprint of the ms. as supplementary material for review purposes, so the reviewers and editors can have access to it.)

Thanks, this was useful. Updates: I did point by point stated why the review I have received was quite low-quality (to be specific I said the quality of reviews are low, the reviewers are not competent in topics X, Y, I was surprised that the off-tangent comments passed the editor's desk (the reviewer said they thought the format was extremely odd although it is the format mandated by the author's guide - not once but twice, even after I sent them this info in rebuttals, and the fact that they got the problem I am solving wrong - so I also said I doubt they read my paper/rebuttal)

and the editor said I was being offensive and libellous. Obviously, it is okay for the review to trash me just because they think something is "extremely odd" when it is the journal's format, saying this was done before cite this paper when my methodology and problem is irrelevant etc. and also more off tangent remarks and false claims, and accusations in an earlier instance

The editor said his decision was based on the editor's note he received, which were not shared with me. Well, considering these false remarks, how can the editor's note be accountable? and how can this justify anything?

So yes, I made things worse somehow but I am also shocked instead of acknowledging my concerns, they chose the oh how dare you route, gas-lighting me, which probably says a lot about the community.

It's really hard to judge this fairly without seeing the whole exchange. "offensive and libellous" certainly sounds over the top, but perhaps you wrote your responses in intemperate language when you were (perhaps justifiably!) pissed off.  There's a reason that everyone here is saying "move on": it does suck, but there's nothing you can do about it. If there are journals with better editors and reviewers, find them.  If the whole field is terrible, then you either have to live with it or find a less terrible field. There are no referees (in the broader sense) here ...

Yes, I am not sure if I am at the liberty of sharing the whole exchange, but I certainly understand you feel it wouldn't be fair to judge on those points and you might be skeptical. I would be cautious too. I have read my former emails and I did keep it in check and professional in general. I think the only problematic parts are: emphasized the low-quality of the reviews (subpar and substandard), said I am beyond frustrated as a regular reviewer, and surprised that the comments have passed the editor's desk not once but twice, I also said I don't think the reviewers read my rebuttals/paper

So maybe these remarks show more emotion that I should have shown, true but not only "offensive and libellous" is an exaggeration, it is gas-lighting at this point. I am done with this venue, but I know the community pretty much revolves around a couple of main circles, this one being one of them. At the same time, I suspect it is full of COI and problematic points. I don't know if I will have to change my whole field yet but I am at that tipping point. If my whole career depends on this person who is very quick to call me "offensive and libellous" instead of addressing my concerns, so be it

I completely agree and sympathize. My point is just that there's not much you can change about this, and that stewing over it will make you crazy. Find the people in the field who aren't jerks (if any) and move on.

And just to be more complete: he used "offensive and libellous" to refer to a said rule, he stated he would share the whole review with me but he won't as he has the right not to if the author is being offensive and libellous (the rule), and he says my email "is" offensive and libellous.

If anyone is reading: https://www.elsevier.com/editors/perk/authorship-complaints and https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com › assets
Complaints procedure - Wiley Online Library

https://authorservices.wiley.com/ethics-guidelines/index.html

Moving on is the best approach, as @lighthouse suggests.
If you don't like the best approach and prefer to combat it, you can ask the editor for another reviewer. Politely, on a day you feel great about everything else in your life and after being absolutely showered by compliments by all of your friends has put you in the very most positive mindset, write a rebuttal identifying the review's shortcomings and suggest to the editor that some bias seems to be preventing a good review and that you ask for another independent review.
If they send it to another reviewer, your fate is then in their hands. If they refuse, well, you're back where you started: move on, submit to another journal. You express concerns about an overlapping conference submission but if your field accepts conference papers as papers then the journal article doesn't matter, and if your field does not accept conference papers as papers then the conference doesn't matter.
"Bad reviews" like you describe - not bad in terms of negativity but intrinsically poor - are common.

I would move on. Everyone makes experiences like that, and some other time, everyone gets lucky with the reviewers as well. So in the large scheme of things, such experiences cancel out each other.

I can't move on and send to another journal because of my tied paper which is not published yet. I am sorry but this is not a mediocre or mean review, it is just wrong technically and on so many other levels (please go over the details). For one thing, the reviewer can't just say he thinks the way abstract is divided in 4 sections is weird, it is the guidelines! it is the journal! Not once but twice this came up in reviews which supposedly passes the editor's desk.They also didn't bother to read my paper to understand what problem I am even solving? Why keep me waiting for 7.5 months for this?

This is the second time this is happening by the way, even if I have to change my field you can be sure I will go out of my way to be heard at least.

I agree with this answer.  The review process is not perfect and it has lots of 'noise' and you will encounter many 'idiots' or ill-informed reviewers.   This is particularly true for open access journals such as IEEE Access (in my area).  Too many wannabes editors with no international research record -- what can you do? IEEE is making tonnes of $ per month, and >10K papers are submitted per month.  Consequently, every man and his dogs are on the editorial board to handle the volume of papers; as a result, many dogs are also reviewers.

@dusa Yes, you can move on. It's a decision you can make. You can also decide to do something else (like appeal to the editors), but it's not likely to succeed, and might then only add to your annoyance. I don't understand the issue with the other submission - it's fairly common to have multiple, related works submitted in parallel, and there are solutions for dealing with that (for example, putting the drafts on arXiv).


text:
Tenure possibilities for junior professorship
I have read whatever I could find online about W1 (junior) professorship in Germany, and to me it seems it is somewhat close to a full time lecturer and the tenure possibilities are slim if none, all the more slimmer at the same university. However, the person who has invited me for an interview said this is rather because they are legally required to do so, but there are tenure possibilities. I will ask him for more information, but 1. I do have a tenure option at other university (and another country), however the university is not at all in a good ranking, I also have an invitation from a couple of really good universities but I will need to decide soon so I don't know if I will be able to act upon those.
First things first, I don't want to be a lecturer - meaning that I don't want to focus on coursework but research, I heard that junior professors can have students and a research group? But they also teach a lot of entry level courses? so what are these "tenure possibilities" exactly? Does he mean a remote possibility in 6 years? Or does he mean somewhat something close to a tenure-track? What are tenure chances?

Your impression does not match with mine at all. Are you by any chance looking at a “Fachhochschule” (university of applied science)?

Yes, computer science related fields, what is your impression? Please tell.

It’s not only about the field. There is a fundamental difference between “Universität” and “Fachhochschule”, namely the latter having a much higher teaching load. Please be sure to which kind you are applying and to which kind the information you found pertains.

The Faculty of Sciences at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) - W1 Professorship

If it is relevant, I am doing a postdoc (in another country)

It depends: There are W1 professorships with a tenure track, and there are those without. If there is a tenure track, then that is usually prominently advertised, and more importantly, in writing. If there is nothing about tenure in writing, then the safe assumption is that you won't get tenure, and you will have to leave after 6 years. Verbal assurances that you might get something aren't worth much.
As to the teaching load, there are those that focus on allowing the person to qualify for a "real" professorship (W3), i.e. either as an alternative to a Habilitation or as a possibility to write your Habil. There are others were the position is used as a form of cheap labor for teaching. W1 positions with tenure track tend to fall in the first category, but there are also W1 positions without tenure track that fall in the first category. In that case, the W1 position is a stepping stone that helps getting a W3 at another university. Again, if it is a W1 aimed at allowing the inhabitant to qualify for a W3 professorship, then that is prominently mentioned and in written form. Only verbal assurances would make me worried.
If you know someone who work at a German university that you trust, you may want to let that person have a look at it. For an outsider it can be hard to read between the lines.

One could add that a junior professorship, tenure track or not, has a teaching obligation of initially 4, later 6 hours per week, compared to 8 or 9 for a W2/W3 professorship.

I thought that that differs by federal state.

@MaartenBuis Thank you for the information, and also for your warning. Indeed my postdoc has turned a sour experience because of verbal assurances which never realized. More so because I ditched other options in favor of those. The advertisement did not mention a tenure track.

@silvado That sounds great actually, I was under the impression that they were given many entry level courses to teach. I am assuming however the university I applied is quite research oriented so they could have the hours on the lesser end.

Where did that impression come from? Is that from information the university gave you, then that takes precedence over anything we on the internet say... The numbers Silvado gave sound possible, but I don't think they apply to all W1s. They are typical for a W1 aimed at qualifying. Anyhow, the number of hours (Semester Wochen Stunden, or SWS) teaching per week should be well known (and pretty much nonnegotiable), and they should give you an immediate and definite answer when you ask them. You should definitely have that in writing before accepting.

OP wrote in the comments that he is applying at a Fachhochschule. Combined with the apparent lack of tenure track that seems to indicate that this job falls into the 'cheap labor for teaching' category.

@quarague The Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg is a regular university, not a Fachhochschule

@MaartenBuis You are right, saw the F in the abbreviation FAU and just assumed it is a Fachhochschule, my mistake.

I ended up not taking it,  I think I would go with a research leader junior prof. which sounds more fitting. I also checked some profiles at the uni. and to be fair, the junior profs seemed equivalent of post-docs working under a prof's lab? This is very different than US system. Perhaps, it has its benefits as starting a lab is not easy, but I was also not sure about the tenure possibilities because I would be required to maybe give lessons in German? I know some German but giving a lesson is just different

I didn't have much chance to look up since I took the other one and moved out of a country in 2 weeks. I think I will try to move to a more research focused uni at some point -but- it was a blessing during the pandemic. Thanks

If the announcement of the position says that it's a tenure-track position, then towards the end of the 6 years there will be a formal evaluation procedure and if you pass that you will get tenured. If this is not mentioned in the announcement, then there is no formal procedure foreseen. That does usually not preclude getting tenure at the same place, but it requires that the university / department has a professor position available, or at least funding to bridge the time until one becomes free, and that someone in a suitable position such a department or institute chair takes the effort to initiate the process, and that the department / faculty agrees to appoint you on that position. Overall the chance tends to be slim.
In most cases junior professors will be expected to build up their own research group. There may be startup funding and they should acquire additional, external funding. Nevertheless, the degree of independence can vary from place to place (even within the same university), and is according to my impression less than a typical assistant professor position in the US or similar academic systems.
Even if there's no formal tenure track in many cases, a junior professorship is typically a very efficient stepping stone towards a tenured professorship, potentially in a different university though. In my experience a large number of junior professors (maybe around 90 %) are successful in eventually getting a tenured professor position, in many cases already 2 - 4 years after starting the junior professorship.

Thanks! I agree that it is a good opportunity to develop your career especially if a research group/grant is offered. And I understand that in Germany this might be more or so the only path leading to a tenure position. However as a postdoc, I am quite disappointed by how early career researchers are seen "temporary" or even worse merely as researchers/engineers to get a project going. This is why I am conflicted. I can't imagine just being in the limbo for a couple more years, although independent research at a good university has a lot of appeal. It is good to hear about the statistics.


text:
How to deal with a labmate using my method without credit?
So, I have made a presentation on my thesis at my workplace (a lab where I am a postdoc at), people make presentations on their current work so it is meant to be a meeting where we know each other's work and can collaborate etc.
So this person takes my method and idea (as in application relating dataset and on exactly what problem to solve) and he announces he will basically do the same for his work (on the same and a similar dataset) only a week after. I gave him hints that the work is identically the same and I could lend the code if he wants to and we could work together, he warded off all attempts, I have given hints to our advisor too but he is like Idk.
Today he announces that he has good results (though he still needs to implement another part).
Meanwhile I did send my paper to a journal and it said I needed more testing (major revision) but since it is a different affiliation I can not do an extensive testing on my own using the new lab resources, besides my code is not well optimized, so I was thinking on using another framework to re-implement it.
MY POINT is, shouldn't HE offer to work with me in this case? Shouldn't our advisor meddle and put us to work together? It is true that anyone, anywhere in the world could do the same thing and publish -but- we are in the same lab and he clearly just snitched off my idea. If I were in his place, I would definitely offer to work together.
How can I deal with this, especially since I feel I will look like I am the "difficult" person. In my previous lab, people were really ethical about this, once you use someone's idea, especially if it is a whole paper kind of work, you include them in paper.

Don’t share anything and make sure all your stuff is passworded at least until this issue is sorted.

@SolarMike Thanks, but he doesn't need to he reimplemented the method himself , and the dataset is a public one. The problematic part is his work is identical in method and application and he started working on this exactly after my presentation. I don't think it is ethical especially since we are in the same lab.

Speak to your advisor. You write that you've already done so but he's like "idk". Well, make sure he knows. Don't "give hints" and speak clearly. If you're assuming that by giving hints he will understand you, don't! This assumption is dangerous, and much more often the other party is not really sure what you mean. Here's an example of giving hints gone bad. The other members of the lab were giving hints to RH88 not to come, but RH88 did not get it, went anyway, and then after he's moved he finds out they were giving hints.
If your advisor is clearly aware of the situation, knows what your grievance is, and is still "idk solve it yourself", then it might be time to re-evaluate your time in the lab.


text:
Can you submit the same grant proposal to two different funding organizations?
I have recently submitted an EU grant proposal, the chances are low as it is very competitive, and I have just come across another fellowship (UK based) which is actually more suited to my field but the deadline is in a few days. Can I apply with the same research project proposal?
Before, anyone suggests, I checked similar questions: this thread is not useful as the funding organization is the same for them (not for me): Can one submit overlapping grant proposals?

Do the organizations have any rules where this is covered?

Nothing in the guidelines,  it only mentions that I can't submit two very similar research proposals (even if they are years apart) - I would need to revise/edit, also I believe it goes in a turn it in check, e.g. is the text taken as is from published work etc.

It entirely depends on the institution's rules. Best to call them.

Organizational rules may cover part of the answer, but I'd also be curious about etiquette. This feels like submitting the same manuscript to two different journals at the same time, which is a big no-no whether or not the journal organizations are different. Is this a situation where you should withdraw one proposal application before submitting another?

@TaliesinMerlin My concern is the etiquette as well, or rather I want to learn about the experiences of people. There is nothing covered about this explicitly so I don't think it is against the rules anyway. I don't agree with your later point however, I don't think it is the same as a journal manuscript. Proposals are not science, they don't have results, they don't have the finest details about methodology. I don't think they would even count as an abstract.  Proposals are proposals. Besides, journals do explicitly state you can't do this.

I read the eligibility by the way, and I can't really apply, but I still want to know. Given more time, of course it is best to create new content even if the topics overlap. And also, all proposals should be written with expectations of the funding agency in mind anyway so they will never be identical. But still I wonder if people send out very similar applications to different sources or not.

What kind of grant is that?  If it is, say, a Marie Curie, then this is an exclusive grant which funds you fully - you can only have one of those.  In that case, there is no issue in applying in several places and finally only taking up one of those.

You can propose for the same topic/ideas. But the EU and UK application process (even applications within the same "country") are different and they look for different things for you to submit. So you can and should reuse old proposals (as no one has the time to make completely new proposals for every submission) as a "base" but they do need to be tailored for each submission. For instance the relative amount of space you have to write about method/novelty/timeliness/impact etc as well as practical things like page limits, page format, supporting documentation etc.
Given most proposals are also for different lengths of time/number of people proposals gain differences even if they cover the same area.
There can be limits about whether you can have multiple applications at the same time, but applications will be explicit about the limits in the supporting documentation. If your not sure ask your university research grants team as they know the details inside and out.


text:
How does Lecturer in UK compare to other systems?
I have never lived in UK, I did my graduate studies in the US. I was a postdoc in Europe, but the situation there seemed grim, I applied for a few positions only, one of them was this junior prof job in Germany (in theory, an assist prof equivalent of US ) though I figured out despite it being an assistant professorship, it is somewhere near the lecturer position of USA and a bit post-doc? So definitely not as an assistant prof equivalent of a US system in practice. Perhaps a research leader junior prof position could work better in that sense. But how does it work in UK? Currently I am in my country of origin, to be fair, the work is good, practically Tenured (what I need to do is very minimal to complete the track), there are some opportunities for research that I need to apply to (I am certain some grants would be easy with my background meaning a PhD abroad, if not the more challenging), but the university / department and students lack research vigor in every way And research is all I want to do to be honest, it is not a top notch school, I simply wasn't able to attend to some interviews while I was living abroad for top tier private unis and now positions are canceled, and the top tier state schools require just too much paperwork which might take years. I am happy with the job in certain ways, but it is not fulfilling for me in research and standing.
Now, I see this great fit in UK, at a top university, I know the professors there, it is so fitting to my research line etc. Though I don't know anything about the system and how much job safety there is. It is for about one year only, but with a chance to extend the contract. Now that I have an actual job to lose, and a pandemic, I feel like I could use some more information on

where the lecturers stand,  what is the usual timeline,  are people
offered tenure track positions afterwards?  how long it takes?  what
it requires?  How much research is involved? (it implies both
coursework and grad students/research opportunity) etc in the ad.

Also, I have never been confident in just asking for a job, so I saw this ad online (I always only apply through listed ads), but I know many people put ads only after they have their strong candidate. Although I know the prof there I don't want to ask, at the same time I feel a bit uneasy applying if they already have a candidate. How does it usually work? Also, not sure whether they would prefer someone living abroad during a pandemic.

Hi, while it is useful, not quite. I know the equivalencies but I need the nuances from a more experience point of view. See my example with Germany, junior profs are equivalent of asst. prof of USA in theory, but in practice not much, and I need this kind of info

Juniorprofessur in Germany can be fully equivalent to an assistant professorship in the US. It depends on the specifics of the position.

If you are looking then check out THES

@lighthousekeeper the fact that they "can" be fully equivalent is itself a difference compared to the US system. What is the nature of the job in terms of team, research, teaching, grants? What is a usual timeline? (see questions in my original post), what are -the subtypes- if not fully equivalent to a US asst prof? More importantly, from a UK perspective. I know each country has a different take and it is hard to know the details.

Also there is the "lecturer" in US, I wouldn't advise anyone to go for a word by word equivalency if they are coming from the UK.

Experiences and observations are important, I found myself in a not promising situation in Europe, so I need those nuances, not a lookup table @SolarMike

In my experience, Lecturers in the UK are usually permanent staff i.e. not on a fixed term contract, but you say this is a one year position. Overall, you are best directing all these questions to the person advertising the job. They will be able to tell you the exact specifics which we cannot.

Yes, it has a fixed date but open for extension. Of course, but I am trying to get some background information so it would be useful if you can share your observations on other points.

If this question is not a duplicate, because its about the role, duties and rights of a UK Lecturer vs the role, duties and rights of entry level positions in other systems, rather than just the "rank" correspondence, you edit the title/text to reflect this.

@dusa A detailed answer (which you accepted) is available in your previous question. As said there, the main distinction point is tenure-track vs. non-tenure-track. While the details of TT junior professorships may differ, I dare to say that they're not greater than the differences between TT assistant professorships in the US.

"Lecturer" is the main entry-point academic rank in the UK system, and spans quite a wide range of pay grades: someone at the top of the lecturer pay bracket can easily have 10-15 years more experience than someone at the bottom. Promotion is usually to Senior Lecturer, and then to Reader and Professor. Nearly all Professors will have started out as lecturers.
The precise duties of a lecturer will vary between institutions, but typically involve a balance of research, teaching, and administrative responsibilities. One sometimes sees positions advertised as 'teaching-focussed': this means a higher teaching load and limited expectations of research output (and often an assumption that any research you do produce will focus on pedagogy).
Jobs may be advertised as 'fixed-term'/'temporary' or 'permanent'. Permanent jobs are more-or-less what they sound like: positions supported by the university's central funds, which are expected to continue indefinitely (though lecturers can be made redundant if, say, the university decides to close or merge departments in the face of falling enrolments). Often permanent jobs will have some element of probation, with a review 1-5 years after appointment. Each institution has its own procedures around this: in some it is purely an internal administrative process; in others it is more similar to a US tenure review, with external referees and the like. However, it is much less of a hurdle than the US tenure process, and failing to pass probation is rare.
Fixed-term jobs are usually supported by transient funding sources, and often arise because a permanent job-holder is expected to be on leave for a period (e.g. maternity cover), or has 'bought themselves out' of teaching responsibilities for the duration of a major grant. Whereas new permanent hires often get a soft start, with a reduced initial teaching load, fixed-term appointees may find themselves immediately lumbered with the teaching responsibilities of whoever they are replacing. Invariably adverts will make vague claims about a 'possibility of extension', but you should not place much weight on this: there may not be a clear plan for where the funds would come from.

I want to emphasize one thing in this answer: "The precise duties of a lecturer will vary between institutions."  You were in the US, so you probably know that a professor at North Central Southwest State might have 6-8 times as much teaching and administrative responsibilities (but much fewer research responsibilities) for a third of the salary compared to a professor at Harvard.  It's not as extreme a difference in the UK, but there is much more variance in the UK than in France or Germany.

This is generally I good answer, but I have to disagree with this: "However, it is much less of a hurdle than the US tenure process, and failing to pass probation is rare." In the last 5 years 2 of 58 new hires have failed probation in our department. Probation requirements are: publish a paper in an IF > 10 journal as senior author, secure >£400k research funding, gain better than 50% teaching scores and complete a teaching qualification.

These answers are definitely what I am looking for, thanks. @IanSudbery what is the timeframe to complete this probation? and what is a teaching qualification exactly, if I may ask? 2 of 58 doesn't sound too bad to be honest, although obviously a lot depends on external factors which is always stressful, but that's true for any R1 academic track. Not sure where the US statistics stand but I think I have come across many situations where people failed to complete the track despite securing big grants.

Sorry, that should have said 2 from 8, not 2 from 58. Time lines depend on institution, but at ours its 3 years. But at the end of that, if you fail, UK law doesn't allow you to just sack someone (in any job, not just academics),  so this is the point at which you go onto "performance management", which basically gives you another year to turn things around. The teaching qualification for use was a PG cert in learning + teaching. Credit-wise it's equivalent to about 2/3 of a master's degree in teaching. So its not as tough as tenure at a big R01, but then you don't have tenure at the end.

@IanSudbery Interesting. I wonder if there are field-dependent differences here? The only cases of failing to pass probation that I've ever head of were people who'd not even made a pretence of trying.

@avid Almost certainly. Institutional differences as well. More data here: https://elifesciences.org/articles/46827


text:
The right order of submitting to conferences and journals
I am very much aware of the fact that we shouldn't be submitting the same work to multiple journals or conference venues simultaneously.
However, I see that the authors usually first submit to a conference, and then write a more thorough paper with ablation studies, extended experiments etc and submit to a journal.
Now, my student has almost completed the work he has been working on and I think it has a shot at a good journal, but since the department requires each student to just "publish or present" before they can write their thesis, he wants to send it to this regional conference. It was our B plan, the conference is regional and does not have much influence, the quality is low but it is respected in the community (not predatory). I understand his concern, and I see how our department's strict rules are basically counterintuitive.
The conference submission is about 2 and a half months away, and he will only know if his paper is accepted (review process can be random in my opinion though I am confident in work) in at least 4 and a half months from today, then a couple weeks more to submit camera-ready paper, and then a couple months more for him to present it.
I really want to send the paper to a journal instead, however even if we submit in a couple of weeks, it means that we may or not get the first round of reviews before the conference submission, and since this is a journal even in the most optimistic case, we may be asked to do a revision (another round of reviews) which will take somewhere around 2 months the least.
So, if it is possible to submit a paper (extended) to a journal after it is presented at a conference, why can't we send a preliminary version to a conference while our extended paper is in review process? He can work on some tweaks and change the model but it would still add on the journal submission so I am not sure if that would work. I did advise him to just work on something else to submit to the conference instead but who can guarantee we will have results that are good enough for any kind of conference.
Obviously, I want to do what is ethical here even though the situation does not allow for the most ideal way that is preliminary works in conference first, extended paper in a journal later.
Also, does it make a difference if the regional conference is in another language that is not English and the journal is international (top tier) and in English.
And how about we "submit" to the conference first, and then submit to the journal like right after we get the reviews (but before it is presented)?

Let me suggest something different. The student might be able to factor the work into two papers, one minor, and the other major. The minor paper could include only some subsidiary results that are needed by the major paper and which could easily be cited without lessening the impact of the major paper.
You don't name the field. This sort of thing can be done (often) in math and CS. In math it would be a set of preliminary lemmas needed for the main result. In CS it could be a discussion of methodology leading to the solution of a class of problems, one of which is the heart of the major paper.
This avoids any issues of copyright when different publishers are involved with the conference and the journal. Each paper is "stand alone" and the major paper isn't just an extended version.
Part of this suggestion is based on your statement that the standards of the conference are somewhat lower than that of the journal, so less "impact" is likely essential for acceptance.
Factoring a major research project into a set of papers, rather than covering it all in one is a time tested technique in any case. Sometimes it is done improperly (salami slicing), but it can be valid, especially under the circumstances you face.
But the "minor" paper has to stand on its own in some sense.


text:
Am I an author if I am included as "Consortia" / "Group Author" for a research paper?
I had a collaboration with a group and a paper is published as the result of this study which includes many experts. The study was done in groups where each group had a leader, we had multiple meetings, passed our research notes according to our study, the group leaders then wrote the paper. However when the paper was submitted we were not informed, we were informed only after it was accepted.
I am included as Consortia, which goes like: Author1, Author2,..., Author8 & Consortia
and then in the paper the names of the Consortia is included in a table. The main author says we are co-authors but how does it work? Am I an actual author? Can I list this paper as my paper? I am not asking for a mere CV but I need to add this to a formal system that keeps track of my papers. I could just skip doing so (and not get points from the paper) but then again I actually should include it as I also represent my affiliation.
I have seen that this is often done in natural sciences or in companies research teams. Can anyone who has experience / knows how it works let me know?

Surely your consortia has rules for this?

It is not an organization or company or lab. We are just a bunch of researchers with different affiliations that were invited to the study.

Doesn't change my comment

Then surely we don't have one.

Yes, you are author, even though your lead authors did not include you sufficiently in the publication process.
I've been a lead author on a number of papers with consortium authorship, the largest of which has a little over 2,700 co-authors. The purpose of consortium authorship is explicitly to acknowledge that a large number of people are indeed co-authors on a study, while at the same time keeping the formatting and submission management tractable.
In the studies that I have participated in, we have used a three-tier system of authorship:

Primary authors are the lead authors who did most of the actual organizing and writing.
Secondary authors made personal and clearly distinguished contributions to the project, but not at the level of a primary author.
Consortium authors are all of the others who meet CRediT standards of authorship. In most cases I have seen, this means they contributed to data acquisition in some manner, which may or may not be further distinguished.

The actual writing mostly gets done by the primary authors, who obtain specific inputs as needed from the secondary authors and circulate drafts with them until the primary and secondary groups are satisfied. The paper then goes out to the full consortium for review and inputs with a deadline after which non-response will be taken as equivalent to approval (typically ~1 week). We do the same for every round of revision, though once a consortium worth of co-authors have looked at something, it usually sails through peer review pretty easily (desk rejections are a different story).
From what you have written, I do think that the primary authors of your paper have failed in their duty to keep their co-authors appropriately in the loop for the writing and approval process. This can both feel problematic and can create problems with regards to the ICMJE recommendations for authorship. Consortium authors obviously pass the first criterion for contribution, but if they are systematically excluded from the drafting process that can create a problem with regards to the other three criteria (drafting/critique, approval, responsibility). The process that I describe, however, does invite the full consortium of co-authors to critique, raise objections to submission, and shares the responsibility for flagging issues, thus allowing consortium authors to be full and proper authors by ICMJE standards.
Let me close with an analogy that I find very useful: I like to think about authorship like movie credits. The primary authors are the stars and producer and director, the secondary authors are the minor parts, and the consortium authors are all the rest of the crew. You darned well belong in the movie credits, and should be listed in all of the appropriate databases, and it's the database's problem if they haven't caught up to using CRediT to distinguish between directors and makeup artists.

Thank you very much for telling me about how consortium authorship works at established organizations and I understand it. However, I just figured out on WoS I am not an author because it does not return my name, and since my university / national higher education system works with WoS, again, it does not return my name. I have an option to enter manually but then again I don't want to put myself in a difficult position as if I am doing some fraud (because I doubt anyone will bother to go through the actual paper)

Also yes, you are right about the publication process, I should have been included in the draft process and also should have been informed about the submission plan.
Also, this is not a CERN paper, we don't have thousands of people, It is about 50, I did collaborate with the author with another group and we added every single person even when their contribution was much more minimal. So I am frustrated to be honest.

@dusa Personally, I don't bother with WoS because my position doesn't bother with it as a means of quantification either. If WoS did affect me, however, I would go ahead and do a manual entry, since you are indeed an author.

With regards to consortium scale: the same rules apply just as well for smaller consortia. I've got another paper in revision right now that uses the same structure for a mere 27 authors, with 8 primary/secondary authors and 19 consortium authors.  My personal approach is to use the consortium structure whenever you end up with a study structure where it makes sense to separate secondary authors and consortium authors, which means that I also have some non-consortium papers with more authors (30-40 range) than my smaller consortium papers.

Thanks, I see, it is really something we don't use in our domain, the author is in another domain. My research is interdisciplinary. You would be surprised how much my national higher education system relies on WoS so I can imagine people having difficulties. How does Google Scholar (and the like) index the authors? Do the Consortia authors get those papers listed on their profiles automatically?

So far as I can tell, none of the database services are very good at collecting consortium information, since journals are currently extremely inconsistent and heterogeneous in how they handle it. You should assume you'll need to add it manually anywhere you care about.

If there were thousands in a consortium, I don't see any practical way to involve them all in the publication process, except possibly having them agree that there work would be used (which seems assumed by the idea of a consortium anyway).

@JosephDoggie In practice, the email communication often goes to only a subset of the authors, each of whom in turn is responsible for communication on behalf of their subgroup, but that's still may be many hundreds. But they don't have to write the publication, they only have to review, contribute suggestions and corrections, and approve, and those processes do scale well.

Yes you are an author, but you might choose to cite yourself as “J. Smith (Consortium Author)” or something similar on your CV and in presentations and such. I have a colleague that calls herself out this way. Her self-citation this way jumped out at me while we were working on a report this year.

If the consortium has a name, use that!

As you describe it, I'd consider it a breach of ethics if you aren't considered an author: "passed research notes, meetings, ...". Moreover the lead author considers you to be authors.
Note that there are papers (often from CERN) that have hundreds of authors, all of whom were essential in some way to a large study. There are a few in which the list of authors is longer than the body of the paper itself. A google search will turn up a few of these.
Note that I don't assume you were a group "leader", but do assume you weren't just hired to carry out a defined function (and paid).

Indeed I am frustrated about this to be honest. The notes passed were our notes by the way, we did brainstorms, delphi studies, meetings etc. The group leaders then sort of put it all together and did the writing. I was not paid, I was invited as an active researcher in this domain.

I do see these consortium notation but then again I just figured out on WoS I am not an author because it does not return my name, and since my university / national higher education system works with WoS, again, it does not return my name. I have an option to enter manually but then again I don't want to put myself in a difficult position as if I am doing some fraud.

It seems the "lead" author will back up up. Lots of questions here are just the opposite. Someone should be included but isn't. I see no red flags in your case. Note that automated systems (WoS) are imperfect.

Well the Consortia notation is used in some domains, and the lead author is in a much different domain than me. So I doubt they will make changes, or whether they are wrong (though it was very unnecessary as the total would be about 50 authors, not thousands like a CERN paper - so I think the decent thing would be adding everyone as an author not a group of authors) at the same time I don't think this Consortia notation is working as it intended - even though WoS is imperfect, lots of systems rely on that.