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What a PhD student should do when their supervisor orders them to have a name on their paper just because of grant purposes?
We are preparing a new paper and my supervisor tells me that we have to put the name of a person on our paper because he was involved in getting us the grant. He says it is because of future grants and that we want to show that he was involved in the research -- and obviously he was not. I think we are supposed to work with him on the last year of my PhD, but not now. My supervisor already knows that I am against it and tells me that this is an “order” and it is because of some sort of “politics”. I can reject but I am not sure what are the consequences. What a PhD student should do in such a situation?

In some fields, everyone that helped to, or gave money is an author of the paper.

@AnderBiguri It may be a convention, but it's a ludicrous convention.

Possible duplicate of What should PhD students do when they are told to add authors who did not contribute to the paper (e.g., head of school, international funders)?

@curiousdannii I can not agree more with you.

I think much worse than asking to add random people to the paper is an academic explicitly giving "orders". That would be my signal to abandon ship before I am "ordered" to falsify data, for example...

I think @Roland has the right idea. While you shouldn't do something that to you is violating your ethics (and of course only you can identify those situations), otherwise, sometimes in academia and at work you're going to be told to do something you just don't really like or agree with by those in charge. I just had this situation at work and kind of wished that my academic experiences had prepared me to handle it more gracefully than I did (read: I was treated a little too nicely in school).

It is possible that your supervisor knows more about the situation and what is appropriate than you do. In many projects, you probably don't have as comprehensive a view of the gestalt organization than he does. After all, if this person helped with the grant, they did contribute to designing the experiment. With the information presented here, I don't think you can say 100% your supervisor is wrong.

I belive it also depends on the field you're publishing in. in my undergrad days i was told for "short" authorlists (between 5 and 20 people) I should assume the list can be decoded as "   " and I assumed most fields just differ on the order. (For longer authorlists: https://inspirehep.net/record/1644616 don't assume whoever did the actual writing had much of a say about the authorlist.)

This is a very common situation in Korea. It's because of the grants and the relationship that is good for future grants.
To me, it's a personal choice. If you want to continue your work and live in your current institution, you have to do that. Otherwise, let's go.

Have you written a grant proposal? My SO at the time was a prof and geochem research scientist. She has generated millions in grants for her collaborators, students and herself to push their research forward. The latest grant I saw her work took many months gathering data and papers, hashing out schedules and compensation for collaborators, students and contractors. She had to prospectively estimate everything from travel costs for the people gathering samples, to costs for reactor and instrument time.
Would her time have been spent better doing science or assisting her students? Absolutely, but grant writing can be difficult as it requires intimate knowledge of the discipline and particular work being done on the project. This is a difficult role to fill that is usually done by researchers themselves, if they want to stay in the "biz".
If she wasn't already one of the lead authors on this research, I would say she undoubtedly deserved to be named on the project. Just because you are writing a paper does not mean the paper is your final product. The paper is a description of your final product, the process of creating the product, and credits those who assisted.
The person that procured your grant absolutely assisted in your research, consider how your project would have gone without it.

In my experience, any scientist that is involved in a grant as deeply as your SO is also sufficiently involved in the development of papers under that grant - so naturally merits authorship under all criteria. I bet the person in OP's question had very little to do with the grant proposal - possibly just as a famous name-drop, or to have a bigger the "collaborations" section.

Does our administrative assistant who handles payroll and funding for trips and reimbursement and travel documents and lord knows what other things I can't think of that supports my research get authorship credit then too?  Of course not.  Do the grant writers in the office of research who help us seek out and write grant proposals get authorship?  Of course not.  There needs to be something beyond getting and giving money.

@Roland and juod I appreciate your input, I don't have much personal experience in this area so I don't know if it is common for there to be a role who's primary responsibility it is to write grant proposals in larger organizations. If that's the case and they went to the amount of work that I've seen goes into some of them, then I would think that constitutes a material contribution to the research.

@guifa Only the Sith deal in absolutes.

It seems like the concept of "authorship" has been conflated in the industry to subsume everyone who has made material contributions to the science described in a paper. I assume that those who want "credit" for being materially involved would necessarily want to be part of the authors as citations seem to be the real currency of the realm. I know papers often offer thanks to individuals or groups that provide non-material support to show their gratitude, maybe if these credit sections had more weight in the industry, some who insist on authorship could be then satiated with a credit.

@joshperry In my field, the only person who gets authorship is the person who actually wrote the paper.  Everyone else — the ones who facilitated data, helped with editing, even drew illustrations, provided funding, etc — will get at best a footnote acknowledgement if it's an article, and mentioned in a foreword if it's a monograph.  So when I see these debates on authorship I admit I take a much more cynical view.   But as you say, people should get their credit.  Credit shouldn't be equated with authorship, though.

@guifa I have to admit that my exposure to high-academia is pretty limited. I didn't realize there were such broad differences in process by discipline, very interesting. I'm not actually sure why I wrote an answer, I suppose my perspective doesn't actually come from expertise, just seemed interesting.

@guifa: The grant-proposal-writer is not being named for routing money, but for the work behind the grant proposal. I don't see how that corresponds to handling payroll.

@guifa "Credit shouldn't be equated with authorship, though." I agree, but until we get rid of the archaic convention of authorship and replace it with something better, it is de facto the only form of meaningful credit given in many (most?) areas of academia. We might like it to be otherwise, but the most junior researchers should not be expected to bare the political burden of trying to change it.

Gift authorship is a serious issue of modern academia and destructive in the short term. At least offering resistance is the only responsible way of dealing with this mode of corruption. Typically nowadays some PhD student or postdoc is also behind grants supposedly written by PIs claiming their shares there. Anyone who can write a competitive grant should be able to also contribute enough with a paper as to meet minimal authorship requirements.

@Scientist Whether this is gift authorship or not is disputed, as indicated by the fact the top voted answer is arguing that it is not. Even if it were, I would argue that gift authorship is a symptom of the real problem: the use of authorship metrics to assess grants and individuals.

You should put them on the paper.
You are a PhD student. Your role is to produce original research and set yourself up for a potential careers as an independent researcher. Spending your energy and political capital fighting battles as a guardian of your take on the meaning of authorship is simply a waste of your time and energy. Souring your relationship with your advisor over something that ultimately has almost no negative effect on you is a bad choice for you to make.
The definition of whose role justifies authorship exactly is grey enough that you should not feel that you are doing something markedly unethical, even if you would prefer not to. Pick your battles, and let this one slide.

Depending on the journal, the rules for authorship are not grey at all, but may be clearly defined. Yet many insist in skipping these. Check for instance ICMJE authorship requirements which are adopted by most mainstream bioscience journals. Another point, the giver of gift authorships does lose something. Apart from being forced into to a favor-exchange deal which can grow in the future, a paper with excessive null or bad-reputed authors is taken way less seriously than single-authored authoritative pieces.

@Scientist ICMJE are adopted by many biomedical journals but have fortunately not yet spread and polluted bioscience journals more generally. But you are more generally correct that some journals do have specific guidelines that can be adhered to in those cases. As for your final point, I don't think that's remotely true in the area I work in - and single author research papers are exceptionally rare - but these standards vary so widely between fields that I won't comment more generally.

If you really hate the idea putting someone on your paper because of funding and not contributing to the research directly, you could write in the text "thanks to XY for funding". With this, it might be obvious that this person is on the paper because of funding purposes. But you should also keep in mind that this person might not have been involved intelectually, but did indeed help you researching if he funded you.
In my department I see this quite often and the people don't actually care too much. Personally I would also not care too much, since you are the 1st author (I assume) it should be known that you did the the most work of this paper.

My first reaction upon reading the question was no.
However, @johnperry provided a useful perspective. Writing a grant can actually be part of the experiment planning and design. Thus, the person in question might comply with the first criterion of the Vancouver convention.

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Given these criteria, these are some good questions that you can ask your supervisor:

Has the person in question made any intellectual contributions to the project that I'm unaware of?

If the person drafted a grant proposal for the project you worked on, you should be able to check this grant proposal.

Has the person jn question made intellectual contributions that qualify under criterion 1 of the Vancouver convention?
Should I send a draft of my paper to this person for editing, revisions and approval?

Frank answers from your supervisor may make the matter clearer. Maybe the person really did a good job with drafting the grant proposal and put his scientific expertise into that.
A refuse to answer will be a red flag, but than it's your call to comply or to leave.

Probably the answer is to put them on the paper.  (I would tell them to pack sand if they want to insert irrelevant edits though...some things are too much.)  There is a lot of hypocrisy in academia.
I had same experience, but was headed to McKinsey and had a national award (so nobody could touch me).  It was still a big kerfuffle when I told the buddy of my advisor to pack sand (and the advisor himself had no real contribution, so it was like second order BS).  Two papers:  one I just punted on...eventually we published without him a couple years later as my advisor wanted to get it out.  And another where I would have crashed the cars too...but I had a colleague who had done a lot of supporting experiments...so got her out...but even there, I too my name off first author at the end (despite being prime mover).

To determine whether somebody is an author to a paper a simple rule is to ask yourself the following: "Would this research have been performed the way it is, was that person not somehow involved?"
If the answer is yes, then that person likely deserves authorship. It's then up to them to give it up.
This is analogous to having somebody "lending" you class time to perform an experiment during their course (e.g. with their students): even if they do not collect the data or run any analysis,, you wouldn't have performed any of that without their collaboration/interest/resources.
edit: I probably should have said "To determine whether somebody may expect to be an author to a paper a simple rule is..", and "If the answer is yes, then that person may claim authorship."
I agree that this is a poisonous setting, but is not up to OP, who is a PhD student, to change it. If he/she is told add an author to the list, in my opinion that's entirely to be expected if it falls within the loose rule above. Is this how it should work? Most likely no. When OP will be a full professor who can set some of the rules of the game, I'll tell him to follow the COPE guidelines that @Roland suggests below.

@Roland No need to be paternalistic. See the very answer to this matter in the "common scenarios" section of the COPE's document. Tell a PhD student who is ordered to add somebody in the list of authors to go to their supervisor with the COPE's document in hand, and have their academic life die right there. These changes may come when the PhD student will be Full Professor; for now things work this way (at least in my field).

Does it include the possibility that the research would have been better if that person had not been included? Usually this is exactly the case with gift/honorary authors. No matter how innocuous, typically they increase the burden on submission process and on the list of authors. The more useless authors the weaker is your work -- that's a rule of thumb to observe.


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Fixing insignificant errors of an article after publication, only in the preprint version
Consider that a paper is published in a journal. It contains some insignificant errors which are not worth asking for an erratum. I was wondering in such a case would it be acceptable to fix those errors in the preprint version (for example on arXiv.org)? Since in this case it will be sort of a “post-print” version of the paper and technically an improvement on the paper, would it create a problem with the journal in a typical situation?
Edit: Let’s assume that the editor agrees that the errors are too minor for an erratum. What I want to know is if there will be any legal issues and more importantly: if it is a good idea scientifically?

The journal won't care.  If it's a good idea or not is 100% opinion.

I actually do this on occasion to winnow down typos and other minor errors in published versions that do not warrant an erratum.  It is essential in such cases to make it clear (on arXiv for instance) that this is a post-publication version which correct minor errors.  I've never had issues with a journal for this type of update.

There is nothing wrong with updating a paper on the arxiv after it has been accepted or published, from a legal point of view. The paper on the arxiv is not necessarily identical to the published one. (In fact, it is rather the opposite: Changes introduced during the copyediting process are usually something which you are not supposed to include in the journal version.)
Whether this is a smart thing is a different question. As has been pointed out, people might get confused if the published version and the arxiv version differ, especially if they differ in terms of content: If someone cites the arxiv version, it might be that the same result is not contained in the published version, yet the reference might be at some point changed to the published paper. However, this is something which can (at least partly) be remedied by putting a suitable comment on the arxiv.
(Note that there are plenty of papers where the arxiv version differs from the published version, mostly because the authors did not bother updating it. Not that this is recommended, but it is common, so people often are aware that those versions differ.)

This isn't a good idea. The problem is that once you make a change, if it's spotted, nobody (including you, six months in the future) knows what else might be different. E.g. a reader downloads the manuscript from the journal's website, prints it out, and covers it all over with comments. Next day they go to arXiv and download the manuscript. Then they notice that there's a word in the arXiv version and the published version that's spelt differently. It's obvious which one is correct, but still: given that one of the manuscripts has been revised, what else in the manuscript could've changed? Without crawling through the manuscript with a fine-toothed comb, they would have no way of knowing if there were any non-minor changes.
If it's really insignificant, just don't make any changes.

The way ArXiv is designed assumes the preprints will change.  So the designers, at least, do not agree with you.  Also, you can just run latexdiff on the latex source, which is usually downloadable from ArXiv.

I would write the editor of the journal explaining the errors and the necessary corrections and asking what they want to do.
If they agree with you that the errors are too minor to warrant a published erratum they may want to post the erratum on their journal page, or wherever the article is available for download.
If they choose to do nothing, ask about fixing the preprint on arXiv (where you would of course refer to the published version).
I once corrected a minor error in a paper in a second  paper I published several years later on the same topic. I've no idea whether anyone ever noticed either the first error or the correction.

This answer ignores the premise, which is that the errors are insignificant.

@AnonymousPhysicist Judgement call, but I disagree. If the OP is worried enough to ask, then they should ask the editor. If they really don't matter the issue will be resolved and the OP can move on.

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Is it normal that the PhD research proposal of a candidate be completely written by his/her supervisor without them being involved?
I am enrolled in a doctoral school in which we have to submit a research proposal by the first year and it has to be accepted by a board. My advisor gave me the complete proposal and told me to submit it. However, on the website of the university it says that I should develop it with the collaboration of my advisor. I was wondering if it is normal that I am not involved in writing it? (The research topic was already clear in the position advertisement, i.e. the proposal was almost a copy of the ad description and it got accepted.)
(I study in Europe.)

Could you precise what field you are in? To me this is not normal and ethical, but it might be different in other fields. The goal of a phd is to create an independent researcher

Computer Science

It seems that you were brought in as a student for the express purpose of working on a specific research project. If that is the case, then the proposal itself seems to be a mere formality (perhaps required by the university to filter out poor proposals) and your advisor just wants to get over the formality with minimum fuss. I wouldn't worry about it, though it probably couldn't hurt to discuss it with them.

This is a regional practice more than a field-specific practice in my experience. It seemed to me that countries like France that are very strict on the 3-year limit for PhD students tend to have the advisor work out the research topic in advance so as not to waste valuable research time, whereas in countries like the US or Germany, where there are only practical/financial limits on the time you are allowed to be a PhD student, the advisor will more often let the candidate look around a bit at the beginning and formulate the topic themselves.
Another aspect is grant money: if your position is part of a specific project (especially if funded on one of the big EU grants), you are bound to work on a specific question anyway, so there is not really a point in letting you paraphrase a topic that was already fixed well in advance of looking for a candidate.

Yes this is quite normal (meaning: it happens all the time). Although it is probably not needed, you are free to propose changes to your supervisor before submitting. So in a way you are involved because you should read (and possibly correct) the proposal before submitting.

I disagree; at least in my field, completion of an acceptable research proposal is a key step toward obtaining the degree. Collaboration between student and advisor is completely normal, and there is no reason the advisor cannot recommend substantial changes, but outright handing a student a completed proposal? Not normal.

Disagree as well. While an advisor may suggest a project, it is up to the student to read prior research, understand the background, and develop their proposal. The advisor can lay down guide rails, but the student should be the driver.

This is not a question of agree / disagree. Maybe it depends on the field but in all labs I have seen (5 different, top rated ones in Europe) this is common practice. Whether it is ethical may be another issue (I think it is not), but in Biophysics in Europe this appears to be "normal".

Well, it is a question of agree/disagree - it may be "quite normal" in your area, but your answer makes it seem like this is generally a common practice, and this is what people here don't agree with.

@xLeitix makes exactly the point I would make. If your answer made clear your location and field, I would no longer disagree with it; the more recent answer by nengel, for example does this well. My intent in commenting was just to make sure OP didn't go away thinking this is normal for everyone.

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Disagreement with supervisor regarding sending an erratum
I have a paper that is accepted and published in a journal. After it was accepted I realized that some of the errors were calculated in a wrong manner and hence they appeared around 1.5 times smaller in the paper (this was due to a wrong advice that my advisor gave me). I was busy at the moment however later, when the paper was published, I managed to recalculate the errors and realize their difference. I told my supervisor about it and sent the new results to him. Although he seems to admit that his advice was wrong he is opposing my idea to send an erratum to the journal. Here is his argument:

The differences are minimal and do not change the conclusion or the main point of the paper. (Although the actual errors are 1.5 times the reported ones, they are still small because the reported ones are small too)
We have to change many parts of the paper and not only one place.
It will put us and the journal in a bad situation.
I am neither the first person nor the last person who has done a mistake in his paper.
Our code and dataset are public.

I have had serious arguments with my supervisor in the past. The last time it got to the point that he ordered me to do as he says. This makes me worried if I push him harder I will ruin my relationship with him.
What are your thoughts about this situation? What is the right thing to do in your opinion?

Could you just post an update on your webpage?  In this kind of situation (Eg sign errors that don’t affect the results) I would fix the arxiv version and not submit an erratum, but in non-arxiv fields I’m not sure what to suggest.

These concerns read like an intellectual bancruptcy on your advisors side. Admitting an error and publishing an erratum makes you look good. Bad case of impostor syndrome, afraid that people notice he`s not a genius after all?

@Karl Could be like that. It could be also that he is worried that he will have less chance in publishing in the journal in the future. However for me the important thing is to know what I am supposed to do in this situation.

That would only make some sense if this is the third paper in a row from your advisor that needs an erratum. Complete nobrainer, but nevermind. Is the derivation of the error calculation written down in there, or just the results? In the latter case, I would indeed say forget it. No sense in writing an erratum just to make a few error bars a bit longer.

@Karl No, it is just the final numbers. In fact we have not detailed how exactly the errors are calculated.

You said the error is small.  Therefore the need for an erratum is small as well.  Ideally you would publish the erratum, but if you have more important things to do, that is understandable.

As I said in the question the actual errors are 1.5 times the reported ones. However their absolute value is still small.

Don't argue with your supervisor. It's not worth it.

Your supervisor is likely a much more experienced academic than you, so his judgment of the situation is more likely to be accurate than yours.
As mentioned, the differences are minimal.
A good relationship with your supervisor will be very, very helpful in graduating.

Given that you have little to gain, there's no reason to hurt your relationship even more.

"Your supervisor is likely a much more experienced academic than you, so his judgment of the situation is more likely to be accurate than yours."  Clearly not true in this case.

I admit that he might be considering things that I might not know about.

@AnonymousPhysicist I think it's courageous to draw that conclusion based on a secondhand description. Not saying you're wrong, but I'd say the null hypothesis is that it's true.

@user74315 True, but then he should better explain these things to you.

I think this advice is good in general, but you should probably have a talk (just a talk, not a whole process) with someone else experienced in your field to confirm that these errors are indeed not such a big matter. Trust your supervisor, but tactfully verify.

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Earning a Phd at an older age
I have a masters degree in Physics and I have worked in Italian high school for 15 years. Now I'm 47 and I wish to have a bachelor or masters degree in Math, because I'd like to change job. How difficult might be for me to have a Phd after the degrees, considered my advanced age (even if I don't feel it)?

I'll give an answer which is specific for the PhD in Italy. In other countries, things can be/are different.

Now i'm 47 and i wish to have a bachelor or masters degree in Math

If you want to apply for a PhD in Italy, you should have a Master's degree. Since you have already an MSc in Physics, you can probably stop to a BSc in Math, but I suspect that this would strongly limit your chances of being accepted for a PhD in Math.

How difficult might be for me to have a Phd after the degrees, considered my advanced age?

In principle, no more difficult than if you were 20. In practice, it depends on several factors.
I want to highlight one practical factor: Do you plan to drop your current (or another) job during the PhD or do you plan to pursue the PhD while employed? In the first case, you would have to cope with the fact that you should get a scholarship and that PhD's scholarships in Italy are around EUR 1000/month [*], which is probably difficult to accept when one is about 50 years old with 15-20 years of work experience. In the second case, it might be difficult to find an advisor willing to accept you as his student, considering that you would not be able to work full time on your PhD. Moreover, it would be difficult for you to follow the mandatory courses which are requested by some universities.
[*] Currently, they can vary (free of taxes) from about 1100 €/month to about 1500 €/month (rare).

It doesn't get easier as you get older, but neither does age make it impossible or even difficult.  What is needed is the self-discipline to do the work.  I was nine years older than you are when I started the Ph.D.
The important thing to remember is that the Ph.D. is training for research.  In the United States, at least, the work of the Ph.D. student is very different from the work of the undergraduate or even the master's student.  Substantial independent work of high quality will be expected of you.

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Pose lots of unanswered questions in a PhD thesis chapter?
I am just finishing my computer science PhD. It has five research chapters. The first four pose many research questions and answers all of them; they are complete in this sense.
The fifth chapter is a bit odd. We have just launched a three-year field trial of vehicles. I was responsible for many of the field trial design parameters: Who are the participants, how do we measure and gather data, how do we transmit data, what hardware/software do we need, etc.? Most of the chapter is methodology-focused and talks about all of these design decisions and how we made them. However, I am graduating (my defense is in a few weeks), and many of the interesting research results of this trial won't be available for months/years after a significant amount of data is collected.
So my question is, is it odd to have a chapter of the following form? “Here are a bunch of really interesting research questions, and here is how I helped design a trial to answer them, but that said, I do not present all the answers here because they are not known yet.”

Um, and be sure that someone who understands apostrophes proofreads that dissertation. (I am not trying to be mean; I am trying to give good advice.)

How did your thesis committee answer this question?

The posing of "open" questions is quite common in doctoral dissertations, usually in the final "conclusions and outlook" section.
However, your situation is a bit different, in that you have an actual project that is designed to address these questions, but the study is too long for you to wait to include the results in your PhD thesis. Given this, I would basically do what you've said: introduce the basics of the case study you've designed, what it's designed to do, and so on. You just won't be able to present the actual results of the experiments. If this is clearly communicated to your committee by both you and your advisor, then this shouldn't be a major problem.

Your dissertation is not supposed to solve all the world's problems.  Presumably your chair and committee have been following your work and will understand why there are unanswered questions.  Your own question tells us you've described how the remaining questions will be answered as the experiment progresses.
With that said, the best advice I can give you is ask your committee chair.  It is your chair's job to guide you to a successful defense.  Your chair can guide you on how to present research that no one expected to be complete.


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The overwhelming silence in shy classes
I have been part of several classes where no-one wants to answer questions or actively take much part in the discussions. I am sure this must be frustrating for the lecturers, who try really hard to get us to answer and get an interesting discussion going.
Obviously, one answer to fix this is to suck it up and just answer the question and explain your opinion. However, as I am sure some of you know, such silences are overwhelming; it is as if the air forces you to not do anything, just sit there and wait for the one person who saves the class every time.
However, what can the lecturer do? Once the lecturer knows they are dealing with such a class, surely something should be done? In my opinion, the lecturer needs to stop asking questions to the entire class, but point at students and make them answer in that way. "What do you think, Pat?", is what I mean. If Pat does not know, that is fine; then move on to another one. As a student myself, I think this is the best way for a lecturer to approach this. Often the students are friends, or loosely know each other, so there is no rational reason for why the students don't dare to say anything. As I said, it is as if there is something in the air.
So, I know there are lecturers out there. What at your strategies for fixing this? Or perhaps other students have experienced lectures that cured this problem? I am talking mostly of small classrooms, not 100+ lecture halls.

"so there is no rational reason for why the students don't dare to say anything": Well, when I was a student I've never been interested in answering questions, and surely not for shyness: thus, if professors asked questions, I simply ignored them, unless they called me explicitly at the blackboard to solve exercises... which actually happened a couple of times during the Master's courses. I'm not a fan of "engaging" lectures. It should be mentioned, however, that in my country this kind of engaging lectures, where the professor ask questions to students during the lectures, is uncommon.

Get used to uncomfortable silences, when their discomfort with the silence is stronger than their shyness, they'll start to speak up.

@AaronHall: Why should students be discomforted by silence? I'd be rather discomforted by loud noises that wake me up...

this happens in 100 "strong" classes as well.
@MassimoOrtolano whether it is shyness or lack of interest I guess the problem is still the same.
It's funny you say that it's uncommon in Italy because that's not my experience at all, I guess polimi has different teaching culture than polito.
Several professors also do what OP said (sudden fingerpointing and direct question with a serious face), some even with trick questions.

I think the solution might differ based on the type of class. In most of my STEM classes, the professor would attempt to link the question to some real world example (for example, showing us a video of the Tacoma Narrows bridge and asking the class what happened before explaining what aeroelastic flutter is). This not only motivated people to answer because it was a non-theoretical question, but there's also an implicit cool factor. I imagine this might not work so well in an art history class where the discussion is fueled by offering opinions with valid defenses. Just my two cents.

I discovered half way through my class that those who participated in the class did the readings and the ones who were silent didn't read the material. So I would ask before the class: How many of you read the material for today? I thought it would shame them into reading but some of them never read the material.  Sometimes it's not your fault.

As a lecturer, it is hard to guess why the class is silent. It could be shyness, but also questions being too difficult or so easy it bores the class. Each reason would require different actions. One can try to overcome this silence by telling the students that one needs their feedback to improve lecturing. But sometimes they remain silent, then there is not much you can do about. Students at a university are grown-ups - if they don't want to, you can't force communication :)

@Formagella I'm not considering specifically engineering courses, nor what's happening in recent years. If I look back at the last 30 years, on the basis of my experience, both in engineering and by following lectures in other universities as well (e.g. physics, mathematics and a few in the humanities), I can't say that in Italy highly interactive lectures are common. Things might be changing in recent years in certain courses, but, overall, from an historical point of view and across different faculties, I don't think we can claim that in Italy there is a culture of interactive courses.

@AndersMB - this is the problem with intellectuals - they do not get the emotional/ psychological reasons why something is not working - Read my answer

From my experience, most students won't volunteer to answer such questions. You have to essentially motivate them with a grade... see my answer below for ideas on that.

@Marzipanherz You can't force them but you can grade them on it. There is a body of evidence from educational psychology that shows this type of engagement is very beneficial so there is a good reason to try this.

@AustinHenley Such engagement is beneficial on the average. Sometimes you get a class of students so far from the average that you have to take another approach.

"so there is no rational reason for why the students don't dare to say anything"
Ahh...I remember the days....When I was a college student I was a perfectly rational being. Aren't they all, though?

One thing I've noted in other students, is fear of being wrong, as if everyone will think they're stupid. When I'd ask stupid questions, and happily laugh when/if it's pointed out, other students tended to get more comfortable and open up a little. I was a catalyst for conversation, and you just don't get them everywhere. Perhaps universities need to use psychometric testing to identify extrovert students for particularly quiet courses during enrolment, and add that to the arsenal of info they use when deciding who to admit to a course.

The reward for giving a wrong answer must be more then the reward for not giving an answer.

Less lectures, more interesting activities.

The issue isn't unique to classes and can be seen in other environments (e.g. work meetings). You're correct in suggesting directly engaging individuals and "What do you think, Robert?" works. The trick is to avoid putting that person on the spot; one way is by giving them heads up about engaging them. "There are so many ways to make a simple pb&j sandwich, and I'm going to ask Robert to comment why in a moment. It's difficult to strike a perfect pb/j ratio and keep the bread from sogging at the same time... ... ... Back to our question, Robert, why do you think there are so many recipes?"

I think the best way to deal with this as an instructor is to set the tone right from the first day.

Make it clear you want an interactive class room, and that includes the students asking questions and even challenging you as well as having the students answer your questions.
Make sure your questions are worth answering. No one wants to answer an obvious question that was in the book they read for the day ("How may valence electrons does an oxygen atom have?"). Students like questions where they have to think a bit or interpret a bit.
Conversely, make sure your questions are not too hard, and that they are not unclear.
If all else fails -- and it often does the first time you ask an interesting question on the first day of class -- this is what I do. I wait a moment, then smile and acknowledge the awkward silence. And then I let the class know that I want an interactive class and that I'm perfectly happy to stand at the front the room through the awkward silence for as long as it takes. From my tone, I make it very clear that this not me being strict and judgemental, but that I want to work with them and that's why I am doing this.

+1 for mentioning that you should make it clear you're not trying to be strict or judgmental. My probability professor would engage in these "forced long silences," and got markedly mad and yelled at us when the whole class stayed silent for about three minutes after asking a question. I think this just made the whole class resent him, and after that many people (including myself, regrettably) just stopped showing up to lecture.

I had professor that was good, but that asked difficult questions, and looked around for an answer. I think she didn't realize the questions were so hard -- eventually the "whatever contribution method" worked so we could come to the answer together.

"Students like questions where they have to think a bit or interpret a bit." What country are you from, and when can I move there?

@PyRulez I'm at a big R1 state school in the US.

@PyRulez I think you're being overly cynical. As a student myself, I love the feeling of being fully engaged in a challenging lecture. And many of my friends have just started talking to me about how they prefer in-person lectures because it gives them a chance to interact with their professors!

@Corvus - this is the problem with intellectuals - they do not get the emotional/ psychological reasons why something is not working - Read my answer.

I've had success (admittedly with eight year olds, but then again some human interactions are ageless) with starting off with "small talk" questions that at least someone in the class is likely to want to answer. Like, "Ok, who saw the new Star Wars movie?" Ideally if you can connect whatever your "fun" question is to the actual material, then you should be able to get a discussion going. "Can anyone make sense of the 'physics' of the planet killer base?" or "Where do we see foreshadowing in the movie?" or whatever is appropriate.

From my experiences as a student, and occasionally as an instructor, standing through the silence as long as it takes is pretty much the worst thing you can do. That just amplifies the silence and makes everyone even more uncomfortable.

@DCShannon It depends how you handle it. If you stand there stonily, yes. If you smile at people, make eye contact, point out that someone must be thinking something, etc., etc. I've found it works extremely well.

@Corvus Under no circumstances would I characterize it as "stand at the front the room through the awkward silence" if you're still talking to the class.

I think "set the tone right from the first day" is the only way to go.  I like to (if it's a small enough class) go around and get everyone to introduce themselves (just their name, maybe what major, etc they're doing) - it can actually be quite quick for a large group.  That way, each student has already gotten up and spoken in-front of the whole class, right from the start.

@PyRulez I'd turn this around and actually say that many students are very uninerested in answering questions which are easy/obvious. The reason for this: answering a simple question correctly doesn't give you any credit (it was easy after all) - but answering it incorrectly makes you look bad.

I have observed a class which was taught alternately by two different instructors. One of the instructors (G) almost always immediately got interaction and involvement from many members of the class. The other instructor (B) would often be faced with silence. Same students, same time of day, similar subject material, very different behaviour.
I think the major differences in instructor behaviour I observed were:

B would phrase his questions as a request for a fact. "What are the consequences of idea X?"
G would usually ask for experiences or opinions. "What happened when you tried to apply idea X to the situation in the tutorial question?", "Has anyone tried to apply idea X in any other situation? What happened?"
B would sometimes indicate that he though an answer was poor. B's comments seemed to deter people from speaking.
G would usually just ask a follow up question, or ask if anyone else had anything to add. G's process typically resulted in discussion and an improved answer from the same or another student.
B would try to force the students to answer if no one did "I will just wait until someone answers" or "I will pick on someone if you don't answer".
G would remember the students from the tutorial/coursework/previous lectures/etc, and ask someone by name "Lucy, I think you encountered something related to this, can you tell us about it?".
B would make jokes during his lecture indicating that he though some particular approach or idea was inferior to another e.g "idea Y is really good, some people use idea Z but they probably haven't heard of the internet". I suspect these jokes put off students, "what if he also thinks the thing I am going to mention is stupid".
G would stick to precise statements, "in situation X, idea Y works like ... whereas idea Z works like ...".

I like to make jokes sometimes, but not on students expense... Also, I like painting an imaginary situation that is a bit crazy (and funny). This is particularly easy to do in combinatorics..

One strategy is for a professor to ask questions that are easier to answer. This is not the same as asking easier questions.
One of the more often used sample teaching pedagogy techniques (at least in America) is to teach a class how to make a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. This is done because most American teachers are well aware of how to make a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, so teaching technique can better be focused on in the absence of other thought.
In this scenario: If a question's answer is vague, then students are less likely to answer. E.G. "Can anyone tell me why that is?" The student might think: What is "why" and "that"? Is (s)he talking about the last step we just did? Are we talking about the entire process? Is she talking about a particular element that was shown but not verbalized?
A better question from the professor might be "Why might I put peanut butter on both sides of a sandwich?" [If no answer, lead to that answer]: "Okay, what happens to the jelly side of a sandwich?"
Student: The bread gets soggy.
Teacher: "Does the peanutbutter side of the sandwich get soggy?"
Student: "No."
Teacher: "So one side of the sandwich gets soggy while the other does not. What do we think might happen if we put peanut butter on both sides of the sandwich?"
You can do all sorts of tricks and play psychological games with students, but until questions are asked that are easy to answer (again, not the same as an easier question), students will hesitate to answer when asked.

Wait.. I've been making my pb+j wrong my whole life??

Sir! Sir! Surely a more efficient protocol is to peanut-butter only one slice, then jelly it, then fold it over?

But then, you only get half a sandwich...

I like the soggy side, tho...

Hey, are we just commenting on this because these ideas work?

Y'all should check out Lifehacks.SE.

PB on both sides? Who are these crazy people?

Classroom response devices, also known as "clickers," can help overcome this to some degree.  These are devices about the size of a remote control (some systems also work well with mobile phones and/or mobile computers; even Google Forms can be used for this) where a professor asks a question and presents typically 4-5 multiple choice options.  Students vote on what they think is the right answer and the aggregate response graph may be projected live (or not).
If there's a moderately high degree of variance, the professor then asks people to discuss their answer with the person next to them for about a minute, and then can more easily call on people (individually or generally) to share specific reasons why they think one answer is better than another.  A second vote is often taken after one or both of those discussion phases.  Once people have already thought about how to express their reasoning, and had a short discussion of it with one other person, this reduces the perceived barrier to speaking in front of the class.  The instructor can also look at the responses to get feedback on whether or not the class understands the material, or what the spread of opinions is (for more subjective questions), etc.   This is sometimes called a vote-pair-share structure.
Some instructors build in assessment (low-stakes quiz questions, e.g. one per class adding up to a quiz score over the course of the semester) with other questions that are not used in assessment.  Some use a threshold (e.g. get more than X% of these questions right to earn full points for this small part of your course grade).  Some provide credit for answering at all and a bonus for getting the answer correct (e.g. 2 points for answering, 3 for answering correctly).  Some don't keep track at all but use it for all the other feedback benefits and may tell students something like "at least one of these questions will appear verbatim on the next quiz" so the students have some additional incentive to take advantage of the feedback opportunity.
(Please feel free to edit with elaborations, links, etc.)

My music appreciation teacher used 1 point for answer, 2 point for close, and 3 for correct. When he realized some of us were monopolizing the answer time, he instituted levels to give opportunities to the less inclined. >6 was level 2, >9 was level 3. I maximized my extra credit by intentionally answering one question relatively correct, so I could hit 8 and then 11 points, rather than (usually) capping out at 11.

While I agree that the electronic clickers seem overpriced, the anonymity reduces the social pressures and helps get over some of the issues associated with a "shy" class of students who don't want to put their hands up for participation.  If students have mobile devices like phones or laptops, those can be a more cost-effective approach.

Kahoot is a system that works with web browsers (including mobile web browsers), so students don't need to install an app. It also plays soothing music while the answers come in.

And, Kahoot is free. https://getkahoot.com/

The idea behind your answer is good, but for students everywhere, please don't suggest clickers. I detest them. One young, idealistic professor I had made us all pay $50 to buy them. We proceeded to never use them, because the software needed to interface with them was garbage and would never start on the instructor's computer. By the end of the quarter, the particular model was obsolete and you couldn't even give them away, so I ended up taking mine in the field out back and shooting it apart with an air rifle, then hitting it with a hatchet a few times.

@tsleyson I wouldn't want to be your ex.

Another method is to give each student five cards that say A, B, C, D, or don't know.  Make these cards different colours.  Within the quiz, have each students hold up a card each time.  That includes the I don't know card, which means there is no excuse to not hold up at least one card.

@gerrit this doesn't reduce the social pressure issues that might lead some students to prefer not attending class at all. The anonymous system is different in that way (I'm not saying better or worse, just pointing out the difference).

@WBT In my personal experience, tutorials employing the alternative I described were fun and well-attended.  It does force people to think, but it does not force people to speak.  In my experience, the barrier to stating ones opinion with a card is lower than the barrier to speaking out with 30 other students.

In my experience the key issue (as touched upon by Will R's answer) is a simple "cost/benefit analysis" from the point of view of the student.
Potential benefits of answering:

you engage in the discussion
you show that you are following the lecture
you can establish yourself as a smart student... if the answer is interesting/correct

On the other hand, the potential risks are:

if the answer is wrong, risk of appearing stupid in front of your peers and the lecturer
whether or not the answer is right, there's a risk of appearing as a show-off, or someone who is trying to become a "teacher's pet"

Plus, speaking in front of an audience is notoriously difficult for insecure people. Not answering seems to be often a safer strategy.
To change this cost/benefit analysis in my experience the best options are:

frame the question so that it's more "opinion based" rather than "fact based", i.e. reduce the chance that you can give a blatantly wrong answer

not "should this function be differentiable?" but rather "what features do you think this function should have?" which also opens up the possibility of less technical answers (e.g. it should be "soft")

make sure that the lecturer is perceived as friendly and reacts to errors in a relaxed way ("it's interesting that you would think so; I see where you are coming from with that; however...")

In my opinion, a good solution is to, in whatever way seems appropriate, set the situation up so that all the students have the opportunity to respond, and, simultaneously, none of the students who choose to respond need feel held accountable for their answer. In particular, "pointing at students to answer the question" is a bad idea, and in fact is the antithesis of my suggestion.
The rest of this post is my (unfortunately quite long-winded) explanation of this suggestion.

Selecting individual students to answer questions is, in my opinion, a bad strategy in general. It might work in small group situations where you can have a personal student-teacher relationship with everyone there, but I don't think it will work to your favour in large groups. In particular, it ignores the feelings of the students:

First, it's potentially embarrassing to get the question wrong (whether or not you, as the lecturer, think it should be embarrassing is irrelevant - for some people, it is embarrassing).
Second, to pick a student out from the crowd is to ignore the possibility of said student having, say, anxiety issues, or a social disorder, or a (possibly irrational) fear of being "in-the-spotlight", or any number of combinations of other things.

Both of these issues mean that this strategy ultimately alienates you from your audience, even if only a little bit. This is not an environment in which students like to respond to questions, and some students may as a result opt out of attending the lectures when they can.
At my university, some lecturers have decided to take different approaches to asking questions, and they seem to have more success getting responses. In particular, two methods which seem to have been effective in some of the modules I have taken so far are the following.

Telling the class to discuss the question amongst themselves for a minute-or-so before expecting for the answer. The wording here is important: if the lecturer does not tell the class what the appropriate action is, then it could be argued that the only action the lecturer can truly expect is inaction, i.e., silence. If this does not seem wholly reasonable, think of it this way: it's plausible that the crushing silence when the lecturer asks their question is the audience's response to simply not knowing what to do in such a situation. In light of this, the lecturer might find it helpful to explicitly tell the audience not just what to do (answer the question) but also how to do it (by working in pairs/in groups).
Voting systems in general (see @WBT's answer, "classroom response devices"), but, in particular, anonymous in-class Google forms. See this blog post from Dr Joel Feinstein's blog Explaining Mathematics for some more details. This might seem like a bad idea (encouraging students to use their phones in lectures?), but it certainly got people answering the questions. Because the class uses their phones to respond, it's (a) cheaper and (b) slightly more relaxed than using some kind of remote-based voting system, and this relaxed atmosphere encourages the students' responses.

I think the key to both of these approaches is that the students get to act as a group: no single student ever has to feel responsible for their (possibly incorrect!) answer. In the first approach, their peers influence their answer; in the second, the answer (that is, the majority vote) is influenced by their peers.

There are several strategies that one can use, most revolve around getting then thinking a bit before responding in a way that's not dead time, and/or making them feel comfortable (that is, not nervous/anxious) within the class environment.
One is to give students questions or things to consider while doing their readings at home. That way, when in class, students aren't caught off guard by a question: they'll already have had time to process a potential answer and feel less on the spot. This works well for both very short answers and discussion type questions.
Another way (for discussion type questions) is to very quickly break then into pairs groups of three to discuss answers and they have one group present an answer. This also has the advantage of getting nearly all the students to respond in some way. When I do this in my class, the group time might be a single minute or two, with two or three minutes discussion.
An oddly simple strategy is to walk around the classroom while asking. For some students, I think, responding to a professor at a podium in the front makes them feel all eyes are on them (granted, that's probably true). When the professor is right next to them, it can feel more like a conversation. The downside to this one is some students will feel doubly on the spot. But used judiciously, it can be effective.
If you can lead into it with a primer question having then raise their hands, you can jump start participation. For example, "how many of y'all have been to [country]?" Choose a person or two based on the question(s), and follow up with the main question.

Some people prefer to think about new ideas for a while and look them up from other sources before asking/answering questions. If that is the case, any questions the lecturer asks on the topic of the current lecture may just distract the students and hinder their ability to learn. With such students, it may be better to ask questions about the topic of the previous lecture instead.

I searched this page for "Vibe" "Energy" "Enthusiasm" "Non judgment" "Tone" "Humor/ Humour" "Laugh" "Fun" and not a single answer had these words in there.

there is no rational reason for why the students don't dare to say
  anything. As I said, it is as if there is something in the air.

The answer is there in your question itself.
There are psychological - emotional - mental behavioral components to this scenario that no one has mentioned.
You need to tune into them to "defuse" whatever "something is in the air".
Its just about the tone of the conversation having a VIBE/ ENERGY that is tough for me to convey in words; there's enthusiasm & encouraging similar enthusiasm & interest in the people around you/ in your audience. If you cannot inspire such a vibe, then forget about getting participation.
In my experience, even SHY or QUIET people open up if you are able to make them laugh; Humor :)
Another is EMPATHY. If you can laugh at yourself or your humor shows you are human yourself and not judgmental on a high horse as faculty, then they feel they can open up and speak.
Point being, if the energy/ vibe is light & enthusiastic towards the subject and sprinkled with little "fun" and less seriousness/ dryness then you'll have more participation without fear of "judgment" from the teacher or fellow students.
The major difference in participation is not about content, it's about "styling" & "presentation" and "articulation" of the content so that it appeals to the audience.
And a large part of making a "dry" boring topic interesting is "being creative" and the easiest thing you can do is add Humor/ Fun/ some Enthusiasm
Now, outlining what kind & flavor of humor will be appropriate & permissible as per rules & regulations of "code of conduct" is out of scope to discuss here.
Nonetheless, the most memorable and fun professors and classes or presentations/ seminars/ talks I had as a student, as a professional or as a speaker/ presenter/ communicator had a small amount of humor sprinkled; making people laugh, smile, grin and have a little fun, while still staying on Subject.
It does not have to be political or sexist humor. Typically light and non controversial where people feel more light & relaxed. It's not even about jokes.
Is there a technique of pathway for this. It would vary largely based on place, speaker & audience. But great presentation skills/ books is something that should be brushed.
Agenda:
What is the agenda? Is it to sell something or is it to get people to absorb and learn something, or is it an ego trip of a CEO/ CTO to show off something?
People read into agenda & intention. If you convey the right intent using some of the above thoughts and people feel that intent aligns with them then they will connect with you.
PS: I remember this asst professor who taught as a tutor outside of our university college the dry & mind boggling and complex subject of foundational "Television & Video technology".
He broke it down, made it sample and added tiny bits of humor to get us all into the subject which was so dry that if I read one paragraph of the book I'd sleep.
But, his way, we just put all notes on one diagram as he showed us and I knew everything I needed to know.
Another small trick, that we used at some "motivational & leadership" talks/ workshops in addition to making it fun with a bunch of humor;
A small packet of wrapped candy/ toffee - Throw one to each student who participated / tried to answer or  even if completely incorrect. Making it a fun non judgmental game where people are not afraid to TRY even if the answer is wrong. The reward is not huge, but it gets the juices & fun mood flowing :)
Bottomline:
These are soft skills and there tons of books and training programs and coaches out there on soft skills. Depending on the demographics what you do and how you get them to participate will vary.

Culture - US/ UK / EU/ Asia/ Japanese/ Chinese/ South America
Age/ Level: Undergrad/ Grad/ MBA/ Professional or Exec MBA
Subject: Technical/ Business/ Philosophical/ Math/ Etc.

Too much variance to give a specific "flavor" but it boils down to adding some of these elements as part of presentation skills.
After decades of classes, I do not remember the content of the courses, but I remember parts of it because of how the professor articulated them using the above elements.

I agree with the spirit of this answer, but... You forgot to search the word "joke"; in doing so you would have discovered that penguin's answer cites poor humor as a strong force against class participation. I am currently in a similar situation and have observed the same. In the past, I have been in the uncomfortable position of having to tell a professor that the jokes he made in class were sexist, since he was clearly not aware. What counts as appropriate not only depends on the culture of the school, but also the culture of the students, of which a typical class will have many. [...]

A lot of these suggestions would probably have exactly the opposite effect on a student like me. I go to lectures to learn, not to be entertained or to get free candy. But maybe that makes me the outlier...

[...] At a lesser extreme, sometimes humor just falls flat doesn't do anything for the class. But, on the other hand, I can tell the same stories about my best professors: they were comfortable joking in front of the class, knew the students and talked with them personably. This is the essential problem with 'advising' someone to try humor: it's a high-risk, high-reward sort of thing. Compounding this, you have to set the tone before you have the chance to know the audience. It can take a month or longer to recover from something you say on Day 1. [...]

[sorry for the dots, I did not have more to say]  @lxrec: I disagree with this objection. It's no different than offering coffee and donuts at a colloquium. Nobody is there for the food (except the grad students, of course XD), but the body's state is not unrelated to the mind's.

Please note, this is not about replacing the vegetables with herbs & spices but to add it a little. As I mentioned above,
"Now, outlining what kind & flavor of humor will be appropriate & permissible as per rules & regulations of "code of conduct" is out of scope to discuss here."
This would hugely change from place to place to culture. It need not be off topic / sexist humor.. At times it was as simple as the prof saying "if you dont put that component there, then you cant tune into the frequency" with a smile - And most mild humor is not about sexism or even specific jokes....

.. its just about the tone of the conversation having a VIBE/ ENERGY that is tough for me to convey in words; there's enthusiasm & encouraging similar enthusiasm & interest in the people around you/ in your audience. If you cannot inspire such a vibe, then forget about getting participation.

Many times, this "shyness" you describe is really a room full of people waiting for someone else to answer. I try a few different approaches from time to time; all of these have been effective to some degree or another:

Take a page out of the flipped classroom. Have the students get into teams of two or three, and discuss the issue at hand for five minutes. Then, call on groups individually: "What did you come up with? What do you think? Who thought of a different approach?" By letting the students discuss the matter more privately first, they seem less reluctant to share with the entire class.
Make a game out of it, and let the dice decide. I've occasionally grouped my class roster into subgroups of 6, and rolled a pair of dice to see who would answer the next question. (I've also used a 20-sided die on occasion; computer scientists seem especially appreciative of this approach.)
Just skip over the question. (Of course, this one comes with a price!) One time, I said to the class, "No one wants to answer this question? No one? Going once... going twice... gone. Fine, I'll save that one for the final exam." I then changed the slide quickly, and added, "You're going to answer these questions one way or the other. We can discuss them in class, or you can write essays on the exam." (I don't recommend doing this one often, but it can set the tone early in the semester.) By the way, the next time I threw out a question in that lecture, five or six hands shot into the air. From that point on, "Going once..." would be enough to get the conversation started.
Learn to be patient, and don't freak out when there's a long silence. I understand that there will be times when the students won't be talkative, but I've learned that's part of the process. Sometimes students will keep quiet because they know you'll jump in and answer you own question, so stand your ground, and don't let them off the hook.
Put humorous prompts into your lecture slides. I often enlist help from celebrities when I'm planning to ask a question that I think the class might balk on. For example, I once put this into my slide:

       and then, when nobody answered, I clicked one more time to reveal the rest of the picture:

       At the end of the term, one of the students recounted this slide on the end-of-course surveys,
       saying, "Best discussion motivator ever!"

Professor Kingsfeild is the master of class engagement.  Watch and learn.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wOUMd3bMRI

I've read several studies from educational psychology where interaction is beneficial, which contradicts some of the other answers here, so it is good that you are trying to get them engaged.
From the courses I have taken, I have seen a few variations of this method that seemed to work:

Use a system that allows you to pick a student randomly and systematically. So the idea is to randomly call on each student the same number of times. I've seen this done with a stack of notecards with each student's name. You select a card and call on that student then you place that card in a separate pile. Once everyone has been called on, then all the cards get shuffled and the process repeats. Another way I have seen it done is using an iPad app.

Once my instructors started grading us based on this, there was a dramatic difference in the answers students provided (as well as how much reading I did outside of the class).

I always to engage students in discussion, and when nobody answers questions, I walk among the desks, and ask one random student, "What do you think of this issue?"
There are ethnic groups that are trained not to make eye contact or ask questions, which would expose their ignorance. This is difficult for them. You are in an American university, are you not? Please adapt to the local culture.

Why do think the students do not like to engage in the lecture (I understood that you are a student who lectures?). Is it in all the classes (or sections) you teach? Or just this particular section. Do you think that the lectures are boring? Material is very simple? Too complicated? They can not understand you? There is a sort of cultural barrier (maybe)? Sometimes if the lecture is early in the morning or late in the afternoon, students seem to be on airplane mode!
You need to tackle this issue from different angles. For instance, try to ask for feedback either formally (ask few random students) or informally (anonymous/online surveys). You can ask few colleagues to attend your actual lecture or a mock up lecture (where they can video tape you) in which they can provide some insights to how you can improve your skills (if needed). Maybe you can start awarding bonus points to however answers "this question" or can explain "this point". You can also do this, let's say that you are explaining a lecture on "structural design". You can say, "Well, Robert is design engineers who works at firm owned by Sally (another student)" The more students you engage, the better.


text:
If because of some recent mental health situation you cannot perform as good as before, should you mention it when applying for a position?
Imagine the case that because of recent treatments for a mental health problem you cannot perform 100% as good as before. (let's say 70% or 80%) On one hand, mentioning a health issue on its own might have a negative impact on your chance to get a position. On the other hand, you have a CV and a background that reflects your performance in the past and, to some extent, misrepresents your current abilities which are not as good as before.
What is the best solution to this dilemma?

How would you even measure that objectively? Or account for environment factors? More than that, you can't really predict your future performance :)

I don't think you are obligated to discuss health conditions with a potential
employer. Your references discuss your prior work and the importance of your research program. (To the extent they speculate about future performance is irrelevant.)
Go for your dream job and work as hard as you can. Allow your career to evolve as it will.  You shouldn't undermine previous effort by speculating about things that have not happened yet.

Agreed, about not disclosing during the hiring process; I personally think it is often helpful to make a disclosure soon after the hire is official.  Along with the disclosure it would be good to mention several specific accommodations that would be helpful for you.  Helpful site: Job Accommodation Network, https://askjan.org/


text:
Is joining a lab that publishes infrequently, but in high impact factor venues, bad for academic career?
I am accepted into the PhD program at my local university. My interests match the interests of many labs there. The lab that I am interested in has hard working people but do not publish often because they are focused on high impact articles only.
Will my career ambitions be better served by declining this offer to try to matriculate at a more prestigious program with more productive labs? Even if that risks me not matriculating into any program?

You may not have to choose now. See: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28904/is-it-unethical-to-interview-at-a-more-prestigious-program-while-currently-enrol

@Sam Can you please add a little bit more about: 1) Are all of the labs publishing only high IF, or is it just the particular one you are looking at? (your question says the first, you comment the second).  2) What are your career ambitions?

@Jakebeal, the lab that I am interested in is the one. I do not know much about the other labs.

@Sam I feel like if the answer is really "He wants high impact factor only" this could be a bad choice, but if it's "He wants highly impactful research" or "He only publishes highly impactful results" then that's not necessarily bad.

It's natural to aim for a journal with high visibility because obviously you want other researchers to read your article. And Impact Factor is a widely used proxy measure for visibility, although you should be very careful not to misuse it. But I think your question has a problem: focusing on impactful research and publishing only in journals with high impact factors are two different things. And you shouldn't conflate these two in my opinion. Whichever the lab is doing, I think your question is on-topic and interesting. But I'm not sure if the two interpretations lead to the same answer.

You can evaluate the likely impact of the lab on your career prospects by looking at where the alumni of the lab have gone in their careers, and comparing it with where the alumni of other labs have gone.
Really, though, you should choose the lab which best combines people that you will enjoy working with and a subject that you will enjoy working on, in the ratio of those two that most fits your social preferences. No matter what else, your career will be best promoted in an environment where it will be cultivated by good peers, good supervision, and work that you are actually interested in.


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Generally, is it better to send recommendation letters or the referees' contacts when applying for a postdoc?
I'm a PhD student and hope to get my thesis defended during the next winter or spring. Before that time, I want to apply for a postdoc. In the lab which is my main dream (though I think it is very hard to get there), there are some permanently open positions for postdocs, and candidates are encouraged to contact the Lab supervisor by e-mail, without any further specifications on their web-site. This lab is in the US. I will certainly send in this e-mail my CV and cover letter, but how would you recommend, is it better to ask my current supervisors and co-authors to give me recommendation letters, so that I could send them at once, or to give their contacts in this first e-mail to my potential new supervisor?
Thank you in advance.


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Is it usual to 'cut and paste' from the 'Case for Support' into the Je-S online form?
I'm in the process of completing a UK grant application. As is usual, a 6-page 'Case for Support' is required, but there is also a lengthy online application process via Je-S (https://je-s.rcuk.ac.uk), which seems to require much the same information as in the CfS.
I understand that the 'Impact Summary' required by Je-S is supposed to be different from the 'Pathways to Impact' in the CfS (the audience for the latter is for the reviewing panel, the former is the general public), but other than that, is it generally acceptable to complete the Je-S form by 'cutting and pasting'?

(The answer may vary depending on the research council you apply to, and the type of grant. Let me give my perspective as someone who applied for an EPSRC First Grant last year.)
I don't think that the Je-S form is supposed to be similar to the Case for Support. As you say, the audience for the Case for Support is reviewers, so there you are free to describe your project in detail, using appropriate technical language. By contrast, I think (at least some of) the material in the other parts of the Je-S is intended to be read by non-experts, including non-academics. For example the instructions for the "Summary" component read as follows:

The Summary is used for:
-Sending to potential Peer reviewers to determine whether the proposal is within their field of expertise
-To publicise the Councils research programmes to a variety of readers eg Opinion-formers and policy makers, the general public and the wider research community.
Explain in plain English:
-The context of the research.
-Its aims and objectives.
-Its potential applications and benefits.

In case you didn't see it, on the "Document Menu" page of the application, each item in the left-hand menu bar has a ? button that you can click to get some instructions. (Unfortunately, these instructions don't always clarify things very much.)


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When to retract a submission due to excessive length of peer-review process
Recently it happened to me twice that I had a paper which was under review for more than one year (first round) and that all inquiries about the status of the paper went unanswered by the handling editors. Both cases were reputable mathematics journals but not among the very top journals (not the Annals or similar).
Is it reasonable to withdraw the submitted paper in this situation and to submit it to another journal? What is a reasonable waiting time in such a situation, i.e. very long time under review (more than a year) together with an editor who does not respond at all to inquiries on the status?

If the handling editor does not reply to polite inquiries, I would not call it a reputable journal.  I say this based on long experience as an author and more recently as an associate editor of an applied math journal.  I've never ignored such inquiries or had mine ignored.

@DavidKetcheson I do not want to name them here, but both of these journals are well established journals with a long tradition

Just withdraw if you want. It's your manuscript and you are free to change your mind as your circumstances require. The process is mostly automated, everyone will be notified that no further review is needed and thanked for their time.

You might be interested: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/120623/submission-review-is-taking-too-long/

There can be multiple reasons for lengthy review process.
1) Your work is very novel and its hard to find a reviewer.
2) You submitted your article to a journal who's scope is not fully relevant to your research area. According to my experience this is one of the major reason.
3) The ignorance of handling editor.
 First make your own assessment if your work is very novel or if you have submitted to a journal who's scope is not fully relevant to your research area in both cases you may expect a much longer review process.
if its not the case 1) and 2), then Check the average time of first decision for recently published article, and contact handling editor after passage of average expected time. If Editor don't reply for another extra 25%~30%  of average time, then write a withdraw letter and mention the unexpected delay as a reason for withdrawal to EiC.

Withdraw the paper(s) and send to a better journal.
Its is clear from your description "(...)under review for more than one year (first round) and (...) inquiries about the status of the paper went unanswered(...)" that you're not dealing with a reputable journal.
Reassess your evaluation criteria and aim higher.
Good luck!

Since this is pure mathematics, I am not particularly surprised about the very long time of the review process but by the fact that we are not receiving any answer to our enquiries.

@Christian Exactly. If they're not answering inquiries, they're not professional. I am sure there are better venues in your field for your paper(s).


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How do I make submitting letters of recommendation to multiple institutions easier for my supervisors?
I presently work for a biotech company in biotech manufacturing with some other duties (QA/starting a research project) thrown in.  I graduated with my bachelors degree in 2010 and am 31 now, and now am finally getting to apply to some PhD programs this year after gaining industry experience and dealing with some psychological  issues.  I currently work with two supervisors both with MSc and 10+ years biotech experience.
I am presently working/volunteering with a professor at a local university for just over a year who has encouraged me to apply to do a PhD.  Right now he will write me a letter of recommendation and also my supervisors at work will write me recommendations.
My question is then if I apply to 5 different grad programs, will my supervisors have to email the same letter to 5 different institutions?  What if I had them email the letter to HR and then HR emailed the letter to the different institutions?  I'm just a little unclear on this.

Well, when professors accept writing you a recommendation letter, they understand all that it entails, including having to send the letter to more than one place. I would not worry too much about that. Just thank them, appreciate their effort and let them know if it works :)

@Ivo while this is true, I wonder if the OP is concerned about their work supervisors, who it seems are not professors. OP, can you clarify?

Oh yes, I agree. If the supervisors do not work in academia then I'd think about it too. But I think OP could clarify it to them when asking, just so they have an easy out in case they think it's too much of a hassle.

I'm not a professor, so I can't say for certain, but it seems the majority of letters are not emailed to an inbox, but uploaded to a service, so I don't think HR would be very much help here

Sent letter requests to everyone, it was ok! Got and am now starting the 2nd year of a PhD program!

If I apply to 5 different grad programs, will my supervisors have to
  email the same letter to 5 different institutions?

Unless they write customized letters for each institution, then yes.
Or more likely, they'll have to email their letter one institution and fill out four different forms on four different web sites.  At least one of those web sites will require setting up a new account with a secure password (containing at least one upper case letter, one lower case letter, one digit, and one special character, but no spaces, hyphens, asterisks, or emoji) and two-factor authentication.  Four of the institutions will email instructions for submitting the letters to the email address you provide; one will assume that you've already given the submission instructions to each of your references.  One of the reference web sites will require a recent version of Java; another will silently fail if an ad-blocker is active.
(I'm exaggerating, but only a little.)
Some of your references may be able to delegate the submission process to someone in HR, or to a clerical assistant, but everyone needs to agree on the precise protocol well in advance, so that you can include the correct contact information in your applications.  As Buffy suggests, be sure that the actual letters are written by people who know you personally, who have the technical expertise to judge your suitability for graduate study, not by a random person in HR or by a clerical assistant.
I also agree with Buffy that letters that are customized to each institution are stronger, provided the customization is truly substantive.  If there are clear significant differences in emphasis at different institutions—for example, one department that focuses on biology, versus another that focuses on manufacturing—then you should communicate those differences to your letter-writers.  (That said, the vast majority of recommendation letters I read for successful graduate school and faculty applications are not customized, so customization may not be necessary.)
Finally, do not, under any circumstances, write the letter yourself.  You do not know how to write a strong recommendation letter.  You certainly do not know how to write strong recommendation letters in three different voices, all different from your own, which are consistent with previous letters "written" in those voices.  I think even drafting the letter yourself is dangerous.  If one of your references needs more information about your background (that isn't already adequately described in your statement of purpose and your CV, which of course you've already shared with them) to write a strong letter, talk to them face to face.

I was able to clarify with my supervisors that I would be applying to >1 institution, and that they would need to send multiple letters.  Thank you, answered!

Let your supervisors know well in advance how many places you're applying to and crucially, how they will need to submit their reference. Some institutions will email your referees requesting their reference, others may have an online system they will need to log in to, etc. Try to compile all this information beforehand in a single email/document and give it to your supervisors. You could also include the application deadline and some information about each institution, if this will help them tailor their reference letter. Then, let them know once you've submitted the application, so they will be expecting the email requesting the reference.
I would not leave this to HR; if the letters don't get sent it may be tricky to chase up. However, if you supervisor forgets to send one, I'm sure it would be very easy to drop them a reminder email or have a chat over lunch.
Good luck with the applications!

Tell them at the start that there will be several requests and give a hint about how many, if possible. This lets them prepare a general response that can be sent to several places. But it is a bit better if the letter is tailored to the recipient, so...
For each individual request, tell the letter writers what you think it might be good to emphasize, provided that you think it is important for that recipient. This lets the letter writer modify the basic form a bit to suit you better.
Some professors, and maybe others, ask that you write the general draft yourself and send it to them. This lets you include the things you think are important in general.
It is probably better that letters come from individuals who know you, rather than from offices like HR.

Some professors, and maybe others, ask that you write the general draft yourself and send it to them — Tell them no.

@JeffE, I'm not sure that is wise. Why do you think it is? I would think it would depend on your relationship and on how busy the letter writer is in general. If you refuse to provide a draft and they then refuse to write the letter, where does that leave you?

Yes, I think it is wise to say no.  When you ask someone for a letter, you are relying on their expertise, in particular for writing letters.  Applicants do not know how to write good letters.  If someone refuses to write me a letter because I insist—correctly—that I'm unqualified to draft it for them, then I've avoided a weak letter.


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No reply from potential supervisor of my dreams: is it OK to try meeting them in person?
After much research at many universities, I have found a supervisor whose research perfectly matches my research interests. I believe that I have truly found a good match...and believe that I would also be a great addition to the research team given my background and goals etc.
I have not heard back from said professor...it has only been a few days, and I intend to send follow up emails in the future. However, I am wondering, should I never hear back (because this has happened with other potential supervisors), do you think it would be OK to try and meet with this person physically? Said supervisor is at a university I have never been to, and in the UK (I live in the US), and I can't really find their office hours online nor classes they may be teaching. Any advice on how to get in touch with them in person, if I am willing to travel and go that extra mile? I would normally drop it, but I am so set on this one.

Maybe I am special about this, but if you travelled uninvited from the US to England just to come to plea with me in person for a PhD student position, I would not be impressed but scared as hell. Send a mail, send a follow-up, and if you hear nothing from him then, drop it. It also does not sound overly healthy for you to be so set on a single potential advisor - you should be aware that the probability that it won't work out with him is much higher than the opposite.

@xLeitix I think you should turn this into an answer. It's the right answer, after all.

The phone is a powerful tool.

@xLeitix: Yeah, that only works in romantic comedies.

Some important things to know:
1) Many professors receive dozens of unsolicited emails a day from potential graduate students, and essentially ignore them because they can't keep up (although having a form letter "no more students!" response is, perhaps, a nicer thing to do).
2) Many (most) faculty don't admit students without having some idea of how they will fund them, so it's not unlikely that this specific researcher can't really offer you a spot in the department.
3) In my experience, most of the unsolicited emails are also way off the mark in terms of research topics, so the most important part of your communication with this researcher is conveying that you a) actually know what they do, b) have something useful to offer, and c) that you are applying to the department and would like to work with them. And it's fine to ask to speak with them briefly (by email or phone) about whether you would fit in with their research plans.  They might ignore you.
If you are actually in the area and want to set up a meeting (by email), that's one thing, but I don't think you should fly to their country and ambush them.
Not to be a downer, but just because you think this person is the perfect advisor doesn't mean that you are their perfect student (or that they want another student right now).  That said, you can still send a nice follow-up email and apply.  You might want to apply to some other places too, however.

I think this answer about sums up all of the reasons why I have at times not answered similar emails :-)

@WolfgangBangerth agreed. This is an excellent response.

I try to answer all emails I get, even if briefly. Sometimes, I may forget. However, I am very selective in who I take on. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. There is not the one supervisor, as there is not the one possible partner (and the latter relation is expected to be longer-lived).

Your proposed plan is weird and inadvisable (as others have said).  Without any context, to them you are simply one more person on the street. If there is sufficient funding for them to take students then they probably also have more people interested in working with them than they can take. If they have limited or no funding they can access, they will need to be careful about who they take. In either case, their time is precious to them.
If you want to meet them in person, you should do so through a mutual contact, or by attending a conference they are (speaking) at (I appreciate that without being on a PhD program this may be difficult, but you seem to have money to spare anyway).
A more normal approach would be to simply apply to their institution, and say (if given an appropriate option) that you would like to work with that supervisor.
However, you need to consider the difference in culture. If you are looking to start a PhD in the US, you are very likely not yet ready to apply for PhDs in the UK. The likely reason you can't find their office hours online is that many UK institutions don't have office hours.

I have one anecdote that is worthy of mention and consideration here. An ambitious colleague of mine really wanted to get a better supervisor. To do this, he traveled to an Ivy league university, arranged meetings with all relevant staff (some of whom were famous enough that I knew them by name even though I am not in his field). This audacious move paid off as he was accepted at this university (unofficially) as part of the research lab of one of the most well respect researchers in his field. This relationship and associate turned out to be of great benefit to him.
While this story doesn't discount what dang said above, I think it shows how travelling to meet face to face with potential supervisors can be a much more effective way of getting them on board then emailing them. What is important, give what xLeitix said, is that you should not signal desperation by making it known that you travelled all that way to meet that person - instead, just explain your travel for other reasons.

I think the key here is "arrange a meeting". If they agree, that is perfectly all right; but just showing up is weird at best (and chances are the office is behind locked doors).


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How to protect the timeline of my project when the supervisor is not willing to negotiate anything?
I am currently working on an 8 month final project, of which 1 month has already passed. Its for an Engineering Doctorate degree. I have one supervisor and one client (who is a Phd student).
Situation
It is really important for me to finish the project on time. The most important reason is that I was recently offered a job and I told them that I will join after 7 months. So if I don't complete the project on time then I might lose this job. Secondly, I am living in a foreign country (all of my colleagues are too) and earn some monthly living expenses from the university. These living expenses will stop exactly after 7 months. So if someone is late with their project then they will not get any living expenses for the remaining number of months. Every year they have two or three such cases.
Problems

They are not responsible for my project timeline: This is not really a problem but both of them made it clear to me on the first day. In the beginning the supervisor told me that you will be the one driving our discussion sessions and deciding your work for each week. The Phd student also told me that "I am not responsible for protecting the timing of your project and you are responsible for that". So I cannot blame them for any delay.
Unwilling to Negotiate: The problem is that my supervisor is not willing to negotiate anything related to scope or requirements. The first time I tried to bring up the issue of scope, the reply was "We will see near the end of the project what happens". The second time I tried to bring it up I got a bad tempered reply of "To be real blunt, this is what I want in the end. If you are worried about your grade then I must tell you that you will be given a fair evaluation".

What does a "fair" evaluation mean? Does it mean I will get the degree but I will work two more months after my project timeline without pay and also lose my new job?  In that case, this is not really fair at all.

Unrealistic Expectations: Now for some reason I feel like that it might not be possible to complete the three goals of the project on time. It might be possible and it might not be possible. I am not sure of the time because I have not done something like this before. And I think that the supervisor is also not sure of the exact time it will take. For example, When I asked about the first goal then the Phd student said it is really simple and will take around two weeks. However, when I started implementing we found out that there were a lot of things to implement just to support the simple thing and it is much longer than just two weeks of work.
Trying to change directions/ Integrating my senior's work: Furthermore, I was requested to also  integrate this project with a senior's project.
Sometimes they want me to go in a different direction which is again scary for me.
They ask me to write down the project goals so that could be used to evaluate my work in the end.

Solution?
I am really stressed out about the timely completion of my project. I am currently working really hard and don't even take the weekend off. My colleagues are only working 9 to 5 from Monday to Friday. This is the reason that I am already implementing things while they are still studying papers for their topic.
How should I deal with this so that I complete the project on time ? How do I set realistic scope and goals for my project without crossing my supervisor? How do I make sure they don't ask me to do something in the last two months that would make me late?

I cannot really understand your question. Are a PHD student, MSc student or an undergraduate? Is this a undergraduate project (8 months seem like it). On the other hand, you talk about Engineering Doctorate degree (which sounds like a PhD) and you have funding (which again is more probable as a graduate student). So, which is it?

Its a post Masters program. Its on the same level as a Phd but more applied and only two years in total. The final project is 8 months.

Speaking from a PhD perspective, the PHD is done when your advisor and the PhD committee decide that you have done the necessary work to be awarded a PhD. The minimum duration of the program or the duration for which they provide funding is irrelevant to when you will be awarded the degree. Also, "I don't even take the weekend off" does not really mean that much, since it is only for 8 months (when most PHD students, postdocs, untenured professors and so-on) do that for multiple years. Unfortunately, it is your results (papers etc..) that count, not how many hours you put in.

You are still 7 months off. Work hard, but don't overwork yourself. 3 months before the deadline, re-evaluate where you are are: either you will catch up, or more likely, you will fall even further behind. If first, great, you win, if second, you now have a much better leverage to force descope of the project. Go to your advisor and say: ok I've been working really hard for 5 months, this is what we got, this is what we didn't and it was due to these unforeseen circumstances. Then make it absolutely clear that you plan to leave after 3 more months due to a job offered and that it is hard to buy food with no salary. She will probably huff and puff, whatever, at worst your grade won't be perfect, but then again, if you have a job lined up, it shouldn't matter. Whatever you plan to do after that job will be judged more on that job than on your (possibly) mediocre grade.

I just wanted to mention something about your comment "your (possibly) mediocre grade". I'm not sure I understand the OP's course or it's assessment, but with a PhD program you don't get a grade, you just get a PhD or you don't, adn I think it's quite likely that a job offered to start after your PhD would be conditional on you actually getting the PhD, they won't accept "I nearly got it but ran out of time".

Ok, that's right, I read "final project" and assumed it is masters. In any case,  advisers really don't want their PhDs to fail and leave without degree as it casts bad light on them so they would rather pass you even if unhappy with the project. I've seen people passing conditional on leaving the academia.