text:
Cost efficient methods to lower language barrier for researchers without enough funding for publishing in peer-reviewed English journals?
The situation: we have many subjectively understandable articles in English. But they will never be published publicly in any peer-reviewed scientific journals. Why?
Some reviewers seem to be very sensitive about the quylity of English. This all isn't about the fields where it is a must, of course. Sometimes, it seems that the reviewers are reacting to foreign names (Chinese, for example), not to a relative language quality. In a particular case, I saw an "awful English " rejection for papers proofread by licensed native translators and editors. Don't read the latest as a point, proof or blame. It's a subjective experience, not with one of our articles, about some U.S. journals, taken as an illustration.
In academia - institutes are willing to pay editors and translators for well-known reasons. What is outside? Most people outside of academia prefer not to pay that much (Elsevier's 2K Euro for average 9K words) for publishing their own work. It can be too much even for organizations (low budgeted theoretical math, etc.) not saying about small groups aren't making this for profit or "3rd world".
Is there an inexpensive way for those whose English isn't ideal?

What kind of publication "outside academia" are you interested in? If you are not talking about scientific journals or books, what do you have in mind?

@J.FabianMeier I've clarified this in the question. It's focused on journals which are peer-reviewing and running by English-speaking scientists and editors (mostly).

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/147225/should-i-pay-for-a-certificate-showing-the-quality-of-my-manuscript-before-i-sub/147226#147226

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/47449/how-should-i-handle-poor-english-in-reviewing-an-article-that-claims-to-be-proof

Sounds like a possible business opportunity!

You don't have good options. Either get good at English, or get help from people who are already good at English. The nature of scientific writing makes it difficult for non-specialists to check your English well, which is why copyediting companies often offer to match your paper with specialists in your field, which in turn makes it expensive because there aren't many specialists around who are willing to do this kind of work.
However, the price you quote - 2k EUR for a 9k word paper - seems very high. Here's a quote by Editage which comes in at $0.09 per word. That's $810 for a 9k word paper. The editing comes with a guarantee that if your paper is rejected due to English issues, they will do more copyediting on it for free. (I am not affiliated with Editage.)
Of course, you could argue that $810 is still pretty expensive, but I freelanced for one of these copyediting companies in the past and I can tell you that the copyeditors tend to be unhappy with the low pay. The papers that they are assigned tend to be awfully written and takes a serious amount of work to fix to the point where the copyeditor is almost an author. It's dull, mind-numbing work that's done purely for the sake of the money, especially since the paper is usually not very interesting.
So when you write

It can be too much even for organizations (low budgeted theoretical math, etc.) not saying about small groups aren't making this for profit or "3rd world".

Keep in mind that everyone in the process thinks they should be paid more.

Please excuse me for the very long text, but I feel that this problem needs to be discussed with clarity and nuance, in order to avoid offending anyone. I am worried about being downvoted for writing so much, but I am sincerely trying to help anyone who is facing the same frustrations as the OP.
This is a topic that hits close to home, as I have been deeply involved in this issue for many, many years. It is also a very sensitive topic that leads people to think that they are being discriminated on a regular basis. To be clear, I do agree that there are reviewers who unfairly reject papers based on things such as perceived language and foreign names.
However, from my long experience, I think that these bad reviewers do not represent the majority. In most cases, it is correct to say that the quality of English writing in academic papers is often insufficient, even when the papers were proof-checked by a native speaker. I will carefully explain the reasons below and offer some suggestions for addressing the problem. But first, I think that I need to give some brief explanations about my personal background, so that people understand where I'm coming from, and to make it clear that my aim in writing this text is to help, not to berate non-English native speakers.
I was not born (and never worked) in an Anglophone country, and have no native English speakers in my family, and my real name could never possibly be mistaken for that of an English speaker. Until the age of 8, I had no meaningful exposure to English language as well. However, my parents saw fit to put me in weekly English classes in a language school, and I ended up loving the language so much that I spent considerable amounts of time not just consuming media and various types of literature in English, but also writing and speaking extensively in English. I have published a number of papers in English books and journals, and done many presentations at academic conferences in the United States and the UK. Not once has my writing been criticized for being poor; on the contrary, I have been repeatedly commended and praised for the quality of the writing and speaking. I do not write this to brag in any way, but just to encourage others that they too can keep improving in their English communication skills, if they remain strongly committed to it.
I also loved other languages besides English, and so I've spent years working in academic institutions in East Asian countries such as Korea, China and Japan. I have  published papers in Chinese and Japanese journals, and therefore I know very well how difficult it is to write an academic paper in a language that is completely different from your native language. During this process, I edited English papers written by my East Asian colleagues many times, and they also edited the papers that I wrote in East Asian languages. All of us learned a great deal from these experiences.
Having explained my personal background and experience, allow me to describe the key problems regarding writing papers in English.

It is a fact that the quality of English education in most East
Asian    countries is still not good, despite the amounts of money
being    thrown by governments at this issue. It is also a fact that
when    undergraduate students start their first year of study at
East Asian    universities, they are deeply unprepared for writing
academic papers    in English. The level of English that they were
taught in high school    is barely enough to write a personal blog,
much less an academic    paper.
If I am to be blatantly honest, everyone is to blame for this
situation (both schools and students). Most teachers of English in
pre-university education in East Asia have very poor training, and
have low motivation to improve their students' skills. In the end,
the only thing they care about is teaching the basic skills necessary
to pass the exams. The English textbooks barely go beyond teaching
simple sentences or short paragraphs. Therefore, at the end of high
school students have had almost no exposure/training at all with
long-form texts.
In regards to the students, they are often over-optimistic about
their English communication abilities, because of getting decent
scores at high school English exams. I have seen these exams and I
can affirm that the level of English required to pass these exams is
quite inferior to that needed to write a decent academic paper. They
almost have never tried to paraphrase anything in English, and
paraphrasing is an absolutely crucial skill for successfully writing
papers. This is one key reason why texts written by East Asian
university students and faculty are often flagged by plagiarism
software for having sentences too similar to those of other papers.
Argumentation skills and critique of previous literature are also
insufficiently explored in high-school East Asian education.
To make things worse, teenage students cannot predict the future;
they do not realize that in their future years at university, they
might have to write academic papers in English. Therefore, during
their teen years, they spend their free time consuming English media
such as dramas, comedies, or animation shows, instead of learning
English from political debates, documentaries, academic lectures,
long-form discussions about difficult topics, etc. The average level
of English displayed in Hollywood media is completely inadequate for
helping students write academic papers. Furthermore, learning too
much English from such entertainment sources will instill very bad
language habits that will be difficult to unlearn in the future.

One more thing that must be made clear, is that even native English speakers have a hard time writing good-quality texts. East Asian students often think that native speakers have an easy time writing the papers. In fact, most native speakers will have to rewrite their texts a few times before having a paper that is good for a well-reputed journal. Even I usually rewrite my English papers 7 to 8 times before being satisfied with the results. All of my academic colleagues are just as diligent with their writing: before submitting their papers, they will ask input from as many people as possible, and spend a lot of time rewriting their texts until everything is clear.
The same thing applies for papers written in Chinese, Korean or Japanese. My East Asian colleagues don't just write something and immediately submit the paper; they also have to rewrite the texts until their colleagues and supervisors are satisfied. I thought my Chinese and Japanese skills were good until I had to write a paper for the first time... My colleagues had to rewrite almost every sentence from zero until it had a reasonable quality for being submitted to a journal. Just like English journals, well-reputed East Asian journals will also reject papers if the quality of writing is not good enough. In fact, from my experience, they are even more strict about quality of writing than many English journals. The requirements for English text quality vary from field to field. Journals in fields such as Urban management, Tourism Policies, Geography, Education, Engineering, Remote Sensing, Cultural Heritage Studies, etc. tend to be less demanding in terms of English quality, whereas fields such as Linguistics or Medical Sciences will be much less tolerant of mistakes.
As a result of all of these things that I just described, the quality of English academic writing by non-native university students is already very poor to begin with. Even though a non-native university student may claim that they put all of their effort into writing an academic English text, the fact is that the text has so many problems to begin with, that it is often impossible to fix the problems without completely rewriting almost every sentence. Of course, this creates a huge problem regarding who is the author of the paper (the student, or the editor?).
Now, let us look at the problem of the English proof-reading industry. Let's ignore the fact that most companies are scams employing non-native undergrads under low paying conditions. Let's just focus on those companies that actually employ skilled English writers, and therefore charge insanely high prices. In order to write a successful academic paper, it is not enough to have an editor who can write correct English, they also need to have at least an above-average knowledge of your academic field. Many times, I was approached by colleagues who had had their papers edited by native speakers. It was clear from reading the first paragraphs that these editors had no expertise in the academic field, because they misinterpreted my colleagues' intended meaning, and wrote for example sentences that contradict established knowledge in the academic field.
In the first time that I edited an English paper for a colleague of mine, I was still very young, and too scared to offend my colleague. There were many problems with text structure, how the various sentences link with each other, repetitive use of the same words, and it had many redundant statements. Even though it was necessary to rewrite all of it, I did not want to my colleague to be angry with me for changing everything. I know this, because I've seen some colleagues who are sensitive, and believe they have a perfectly reasonable command of English; they would get upset when I needed to rewrite a whole sentence that they thought was perfectly fine. I often had to explain in detail the reasons for changing each sentence, which was very exhausting for me.
In the case of this first paper, I did only the minimum changes necessary to make each sentence grammatical, and explained this situation to him. He sent the paper to the journal, and it was almost rejected, but it was changed to a request for a revision. There was a warning saying that unless there were significant improvements to the text's quality, the paper would be rejected. Therefore, in order for the English text to be publishable, I asked for my colleague's understanding and permission, and extensively rewrote the text from zero. The revised paper was accepted and published. As a thank you, the colleague agreed to help rewrite my texts written in East Asian languages. Technically speaking, I made such profound modifications to the whole text and contents that I should have been considered a co-author. Indeed, I was offered to be a co-author numerous times, but I always rejected such requests, because I was doing this as a friend, not for obtaining personal gains. (Note that this whole answer is not revised or rewritten, and may contain small mistakes!)
The key point of this long text is that native-speaking editors do not have the authority to completely rewrite a text from the bottom up. Even if you pay a lot of money to these editing companies, the editors can hardly do more than fix basic grammatical mistakes, and highlight text passages that are problematic. If they start to severely rewrite the text, then the editors must be considered at least co-authors, if not first authors. This is the main reason why papers edited by native speakers will often be rejected by major journals due to poor text quality. The reason is that there are much deeper problems with the text as a whole, beyond just fixing the basic grammar of each sentence, and the editor is not authorized to fix such problems (at least, not without rewriting the whole thing).
The harsh, cruel reality is that non-native English speakers will have to do at least 3-4 times the amount of work done by a native speaker in order to get a decent quality text suitable for a good journal. I know this, because I had to undergo an insane amount of work, suffering and rewriting in order to write my papers in East Asian languages and get them published in good East Asian journals.
Now, what can be done about this situation? There is no perfect solution, except lots of hard work, and lots of exposure to English academic papers and lots of time spent writing. Trust me, I am not asking people to master high-level prose; a lot of work and practice is necessary just for writing average-level academic texts. the fact is that students were exposed to all sorts of inappropriate English during their teen years, and now they have to suffer a lot to make up for it. In one of the universities that I worked in China, the whole faculty of Pharmaceutical Studies was restructured around English teaching. The appointed dean of the faculty is a native English scientist, and every single thing inside that faculty is conducted in English (classes, materials, etc.). This is a very extreme measure, but the fact is that after doing this, both Chinese students and faculty members started having much more success in getting papers published in English journals. What else can be done by each student in order to improve their papers?

Focus all of your energies and time on SPEAKING and WRITING.
Most students only read and listen passively to English materials,
and these skills are not enough for doing public presentations or
writing papers. Find some room or place where you can speak things
out loud. Get a textbook that teaches academic English, and read the
texts and sentences with a loud voice, not just with your mind. Also
spend as much time as you can trying to write your own thoughts and
scientific ideas in English, for example in a blog or on your
computer.
Use the method of "shadowing" to improve your English diction
and pronunciation. Go to Youtube, search some TED presentations
related to your research topic (or any topic that you are interested
in), and start shadowing, first at slow speed, then at faster
speeds. If you don't know what "shadowing" is, there are many
Youtube videos discussing the method. Doing "shadowing" is extremely
tiring, even for just 3 minutes. But if you are persistent, and keep
doing a little bit every day, after 5 or 6 months you will start to
notice meaningful improvements in your overall language skills.
Record your own voice, and see how close your pronunciation is to
that of the native speaker in the TED presentation.
Use Google's search function tools and Google Books to
double-check if your English sentences are grammatical or awkward.
Let's look for example at the OP's sentence: "Don't read the latest
as a point, proof or blame. It's a subjective experience, not with
one of our articles, about some U.S. journals, taken as an
illustration." I would break this sentence down into smaller pieces,
and separately check each of them on Google. This can be achieved by
using double quotes (""), and the asterisk (*) wildcard . On Google
Search (or Google Books), I would put for example "Don't read the
latest as a point". If Google says there are no matches, or
recommends a different sentence, then you need to fix something. You
can search Google for "Don't read the latest as *" and it will
search for different sentences that use this kind of language. Or,
search for "Don't read the * as a proof", and see what kind of
results you get. If you get good matches in Google Books or Google
Scholar, then you can get a better understanding of whether the sentence
works or not. Of course, this is extremely time-consuming, but after
you do this for a while it will become much easier to write papers.
You only need to make this huge effort for your first two or 3
papers, then everything will become much easier.
If you still have doubts about certain sentences, use Stack
Exchange, and other forums where people ask questions about how to
write academic English.
Before submitting a paper to a certain journal, ALWAYS download
at least 5 or 6 papers previously published by that journal, which
are similar to your research topic. Take LOTS of notes about how
those papers organize the information, how they explain their
arguments, how endnotes and bibliography are written, etc. This will
help you to tailor your paper in order to better match the
objectives of the journal.
Get as many comments from colleagues and profs about the clarity
of the text structure and overall ideas. Rewrite the text until the
overall structure is clear, and the arguments flow smoothly from
sentence to sentence. My academic colleagues usually ask 15-20
friends to give comments about their papers, and usually about 5 of
them will send very useful comments.
There are many Youtube channels that teach about paraphrasing
and how to write academic English. Be sure to check them out, and
take many notes! For example, check the Youtube channel "English
with Beth B".
If you have a native English-speaking friend, ask them to fix
your text, and tell them to not be afraid of rewriting large
sections if necessary. If you can, pay them some small cash, or help
them in any way you can (at least give them a thank you in the
Acknowledgements section).
At the end of this whole process, you can finally pay a
professional editing company to proofread your text. If the overall
text structure and ideas are well-organized, then the editor can
safely make small fixes to the grammar, and tighten up the text, and
the paper has a good chance of being accepted by the journal with
minor revisions.

If you really commit yourself to doing these things for one year, then you will see some dramatic improvements in your skills. Remember, the beginning is insanely hard, but the benefits of training yourself will last for the rest of your life.
No matter what, do not become discouraged if you are struggling to produce English papers. Keep fighting and striving to improve yourself. Good Luck!

"I am worried about being downvoted for writing so much,"  As you should be.

Point (humbly) taken. I will be more cautious in the future.

Discrimination by peer reviewers based on people's perceived language does happen.  It's happened to me.
There are no translation or editing services which are both cheap and good.  Your best option is to get someone else to pay the bill.  Find a generous colleague who is good at Academic English and also good at the topic of your paper, and ask them to help.  Then your colleague's employer will be paying the bill.

There are a few issues here, so I'll give some suggestions for each.  I'll address your specific situation regarding writing in English, but the same general advice applies regardless of the language of a paper/journal.

Discrimination on the basis of percieved name-origin: I would be highly surprised if there is any substantial discrimination of this kind in academic review.  Perhaps others have anecdotally seen it, but I've never previously heard of such a thing occurring in present academia.  Blind review of papers removes the name of the author from consideration in the first place, and even when the review process is not blinded, in most fields the names on existing published papers (which you are often citing in your research anyway) run the gamut over ever race and ethincity of people there is.  It would be extremely strange if a reviewer was to discriminate on this basis.
It is unclear from your post what causes you to believe that this has occurred.  (Is it really impossible that a "licensed translator" could have awful English, leading a paper to be validly rejected on that basis?)  As I have said, I would be surprised if this is occurring in any substantial magnitude.  In any case, if you're worried about this, a possible solution is for authors to target publications that use a blinded review system.

Trying to get papers with low-quality English published: I actually think it's really important that academic journals hold the line on the standard of written communication they expect.  Clear writing and proper use of the English language is important, even when presenting technical papers.  So if reviewers are very sensitive about the quality of English, good on them.  Now, this is obviously something that creates a barrier for researchers who have low-quality English-writing skills, but that is not substantively different from the barriers facing researchers who have other deficiencies in their academic skills.
In terms of a solution, in the absence of a funded translator I see three inexpensive options: (1) the author could consider their English-language deficiency as a deficiency in necessary academic skills and work to improve it (i.e., learn to write better); (2) the author could try to find a co-author with good English-writing skills who can take on the task of revising the paper up to a good standard of writing; or (3) the author could seek assistance from an "academic study skills" centre at their university (most universities have something like this to help students or researchers whose language skills are poor).
The latter two methods are obviously much simpler in the short-term, and getting a co-author ensures that there is ample help, but it then requires sharing credit more on the academic work.  If the underlying substance of a paper is good then it should be fairly easy to find a co-author for a rewrite, since rewriting a paper more clearly is not a lot of work relative to the substantive work of the research itself.

"It would be extremely strange if a reviewer was to discriminate on this basis."  Discrimination is both extremely strange and extremely common.  It is good to know about unconscious bias.

"proper use of the English language is important,"  This is not the proper way to talk about the difference between Academic English and various other dialects of English.  Each local dialect is proper in the region where it is widely used.  There are no "improper" dialects.  People just use other dialects on occasions when they are expected to use Academic English.

Or they just write badly.  That also exists.

Re name-origin discrimination, I don't believe you --- discrimination on that basis is certainly not extremely common (speculative theories of unconscious bias notwithstanding).

@Ben I would politely direct you to numerous studies on the name-origin discrimination bias that has been demonstrated for decades in the US. It is indeed more common than you might think. This occurs across both gender and ethnicity. Examples: National Bureau of Economic Research: https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/employers-replies-racial-names; others: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597806000690; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4;

@bashity: While these are interesting studies, they are for job interviews/student ratings, not academic peer review.  Peer review is usually blinded (so you don't see the name and can't possibly discriminate on it), and even when it is not blinded, the people who submit and the people who review are all scholars in the field, so it is unlikely that name discrimination would occur in this context.  I'm happy to be corrected if there is a study on this, but I would be extremely surprised if it is common in that context.


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Does a reviewer get to know comments from previous reviewers?
Most journals during second revision try to send the articles to reviewers who had reviewed the article before. But, if in case one such reviewer responds with a message that he cannot review the article this time, usually a new reviewer is requested to review the article.
My question is will this new reviewer also get the reviewer comments from earlier reviewer along with the manuscript?

For the journals I'm familiar with, yes.

Note that unless you are asking due to pure curiosity, you will probably get a more useful answer if you tell us why you want to know this.

Of the journals I've reviewed for, most, but not all share past reviews. However, the exact answer to your question depends upon journal specific policies and possibly even editor discretion.

I agree with Richard Erickson. Bear in mind that the review process is simply the journal editor's tool to determine what should be published, what should be revised, and what should be rejected. It is no more than that. The journal will have a peer-review policy, and certain ethical standards that must be met, but beyond that there is probably no binding rule. If it suits the journal's purpose, and if it's fair on the authors and referees, it can be done.

All publishers I reviewed a revision for so far did this, so I would expect this to be default.
In general, the information in the previous reviews might prove useful without the editor being able to predict this (otherwise, they could review the paper themselves).
Thus it would be unwise to withhold that information, unless there is a good reason for this (like a reviewer accidentally revealing confidential information).
Some specific examples where having the previous reviews is useful:

One purpose of reviewing a revision, if not the main one, is to evaluate whether the previous round of review was properly addressed and no new problems arose from the new material. A new reviewer may miss a problem the previous reviewers found, but they may be capable of telling whether it was properly addressed. (If all reviewers were perfect, why use more than one reviewer at all?)
Sometimes authors make weird changes in response to a review. It is much easier to properly evaluate these changes if you know what happened before. In particular, a reviewer can avoid or directly address the problem of making a suggestion that is in conflict with another reviewer’s suggestions.

Also note that often the authors’ response to a review contains the entire review as quotes anyway (and disentangling the two would be quite tedious for the journal).

For the manuscripts I've reviewed for the first time in a revision, I generally do not get to see the original reviews as submitted by the reviewers themselves. However, I do get to see the response submitted by the authors, which normally includes a point-by-point response to the original reviews, and thus essentially provides the same information.

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Applying for a postdoc with degree from different fields
I have a master and bachelor degree in Aerospace engineering. Master degree was from the most prestigious institute in my country (India).
Then I moved on to my Ph.D., but this time into a different field. Physical Chemistry. Particularly because I wanted to do fundamental science rather than engineering. I am doing pretty good in my Ph.D. (in terms of publication and progress)
Will having a degree from different fields be a trouble when I apply for a postdoc (in Physical chemistry) in top universities (like Cambridge or Princeton)? Also will this affect me when I try for a tenure track position?

In my experience, people are much more interested in your publications and research specialty then your previous degrees.
A previous degree in a separate field is more of an asset that can open new doors; you are a credible person for any possible cooperation between your current and previous field (about which I know little; maybe creating or investigating materials that might be of use in aerospace engineering). Interdisciplinary work is difficult unless someone knows both of the fields and understands their concerns and languages.
I suppose someone might see a positive or negative signal in you having changed a field (learning an entirely new field in your PhD studies is certainly impressive, or maybe you lack some fundamentals in your new field, and almost certainly you stand out from among many other candidates whose master's degree is in a more usual field), but this could go either way and depends on the person doing the hiring. I would not be worried.

First, your PhD will be in the same field as you're looking for a postdoc/TT job in, so I especially wouldn't worry about it in that regard. People switch fields as their interests evolve, and having a PhD in Physical Chemistry implies you've now spent several years of fairly dedicated study in it.
Similarly, as you're applying to positions in that field, I don't think you need to worry about sending a signal about hopping around a lot, as you're only really talking about two fields and a single transition.
Generally, I think people are far more interested in your publications, your research interests, and what you might bring to the table. I've seen people "re-task" themselves in postdocs or tenure track positions from different fields because they could tell a coherent story about why they should be there.
For the record, my BA, PhD, Postdoc and current job are all in different (albeit related) fields.

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text:
How to add data availability statement in Physical Review Letters?
We have submitted our recent findings to PRL. As the second round of revision came through, we are almost confident that we will get published in PRL.
Now we wanted to provide our algorithm as a matlab GUI so that the readers can reproduce our results in a single click. The idea is to motivate readers from other fields to have a quick feel of what we do.
Most journals like nature have a Data availability where they allow to provide links to available data. Is there a way in PRL to do such thing. We would like to add a link to our webpage which has the software created by us.
For example,

Data availability: Interested readers can reproduce our results by using our algorithm. The software can be found at [URL].

Is such a statement allowed in PRL? If so where does it go, before acknowledgments or after that or in the supplemental?

Is such a statement allowed in PRL? At a guess: probably. Read the guidelines of PRL to confirm. If so where does it go, before acknowledgments or after that or in the supplemental? The statement is crucial for anyone that wants to re-run your algorithm, so I think it belongs in the main body of the paper

I don't have experience with PRL, only with an APS journal(Physical Review x, where x=A-E[not all of them, only an undisclosed letter]). First of all, I would like to congratulate you, having a paper in PRL it is really something to be appreciated. For PRL, you can add supplemental material to the paper, which can be downloaded when the user downloads the original paper attached to it. As for the program which is based on a Matlab GUI, you can add a link in the body of the paper. I have seen that some authors also add links in the Acknowledgements section of the paper, where they also state that any data is available on e-mail also upon request. Also, if you used Matlab, please provide all the necessary files and the Matlab version to be used. Please use a public open access repository which will not change it's DNS in time. Moreover, don't forget that you might need to cite also Matlab as a bibtex, it might be a necessity when using this software product (see the copyright files when you installed this software on your computer).

I've found PRL often puts links to data archives in a small paragraph just before the acknowledgments.

To provide a 2024 update, APS have released a statement that (bold for emphasis):

The American Physical Society has refreshed its data availability policy to reflect a commitment to transparent and ethical research. All articles published in the Physical Review journals will now feature a statement detailing where data required to support or replicate the claims can be accessed. This new policy goes into effect Sept. 4 for articles submitted to Physical Review D and PRX Energy, and will take effect for articles submitted to the remaining journals by the end of the year.
Previously, APS strongly encouraged authors to include data availability statements that detailed where relevant data, code, and other material used in the work could be accessed. Now, authors must select one of several pre-scripted data availability statements. The public sharing of data itself remains encouraged. Authors who do not provide data publicly must offer justification and their data must still be shared privately with referees and editors upon request.

This makes clear that such data availability statements are currently explicitly allowed in PRL (in fact, strongly encouraged), and will be made mandatory for articles to submitted to PRL in 2025.
Note that this does not amount to a requirement of publishing the data. Per the policy,

If any data referred to in an article (including the authors’ original data) is publicly available at the time of publication, the authors will be asked to provide a reference or references giving further details, including a DOI or URL, which will be cited in the statement. Please see the section on data citation for more details.
If the data will not be made publicly available, then authors must:

specify the reason why they are unable to make their research data publicly available, which will be included in the published article, and
agree to make any data required to support or replicate claims made in their article available privately to the journal’s editors, reviewers, and readers upon reasonable request.
The decision to accept an article for publication will not be affected by whether or not authors share their research data publicly, as long as both requirements above are met.

In addition to this policy, authors should follow requirements for sharing data and code set by their funding agencies and institutions.

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How to resolve: Reviewer #1 says remove section X vs. Reviewer #2 says expand section X
I am experiencing conflicting reviews with my manuscript that recently received its reviews. The reviewer #1 wants me to delete the analysis X for the clarity and focus of my MS, while reviewer #2 wants me to further discuss the results of analysis X, as it appears to be interesting for them. Both comments have important points. Reviewer #1 will make the MS short and clear, while reviewer #2 will make the MS longer and open more discussions.

What did the editor say?

The paper is for a major revision. The editor did not offer any resolution to resolve this conflicting comments from both reviewers. However, Reviewer #2 offered a clear reason why removing a specific section in the MS is important and will improve the paper. I am just worried about how should I address the comments of reviewer #3.

Possible duplicate of How to effectively address conflicting suggestions from reviewers

Would the paper lose anything by moving an extended discussion into SI and referring readers to it?

My apologies for editing your question, but I dropped #2 and #3 to #1 and #2, generalized, the title, and mentioned original reviewer #1 just at the end since they're not a party to the relevant question...

It’s your paper, not the editor’s or the reviewer’s. What do you think is best?

What this means to me is that Section X needs to be revised.
Reviewer #1 is pointing out that section X is not well-motivated as it stands -- because they can't figure out it's relation
Reviewer #2 is pointing out that section X is not good enough as it stands -- because it doesn't address relevant issues about X.
Thus, the two are not necessarily opposite. Reviewer #1 is telling you that you need to better explain why X is as state if you want to include it. Reviewer #2 is saying you need to better address what is at stake in X but recognizes X is significant.
When I get this sort of review, I rewrite that section to make very clear why discussing X matters to the paper (thus addressing Reviewer #1) and try to improve and focus my arguments so that it really answers the objections raised related to X (thus addressing Reviewer #2).
I'm in philosophy, so maybe this advice doesn't apply to your field.

I'd certainly apply the principle of "if you're going to explain it, explain it properly" in physics

Although this seems like you are stuck between Scylla and Charybis it isn't that bad. It is annoying that the editor is unhelpful, but they are often non-committal in these situations.
Remember that when you send your resubmission with a response to the reviews, each reviewer will see the other's comments. So, in your response, include a section titled "Consideration of reviewers #1 & #2 comments about Analysis X". Explain that both reviewers had good points. And after careful consideration you have decided to do ... whatever you decide.
Depending on the journal / field, one option is to move an expanded version of the analysis (satisfying #2) to the supplement (satisfying #1). If supplement is not available, you can at least put that analysis into a subsection, clearly titled, so that readers (and #1) can more easily skim/skip that subsection without disturbing the overall flow.
I always lean toward including more rather than less, so I would probably end up saying something to #1 like "Based on the thoughtful remarks from reviewer #1, we realized that we failed to clearly explain analysis X, since we, and reviewer #2 both think it is important. As such, we have re-written this section emphasizing how it contributes to our main conclusions."
I have never heard of a reviewer rejecting a paper because an extra analysis was included. If the paper is too long after being accepted, the editor will ask you to trim it down and that can be another opportunity to move things to supplement/appendices.

+1 for "lean toward including more rather than less". Gone are (or should be) the days where physical pages were precious and deliberately opaque writing was preciouser.

+1 for recommending remarks on the value of both reviews.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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How should I investigate and respond to a potentially false claim of a publication in the CV of an applicant?
I was reviewing an application for a grant and found out that one of the applicants has included a publication on his CV that does not exist in the journal. It was supposedly published several years ago. I counterchecked the list of publications of that particular journal, including the issue and volume, but it's non-existent. I also googled the title and checked the Google Scholar account of the applicant -- the paper could not be found.
Is this an academic offense? How can I investigate further, and what should I do if I am ultimately unable to find any proof of this paper's existence?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Do not contact the applicant directly: There is a reason why reviews of grant applications are anonymous, and you would be undermining the refereeing process by such an action. Instead, contact the funding agency that solicited your review, explain the situation and ask them for advice. They may choose to contact the applicant or another course of action.
For the record: I reviewed numerous grant applications to various funding agencies from the US, Canada, Latin America and Europe (three per year on average). I never encountered a grant application which contained a reference to a nonexisting paper.

@DavidS: The answer is meant, in part, to counter the utterly wrong advice coming from some comments and other answers. My answer also suggests the (correct) course of action. How come that "it provides advice for a situation different from what is being asked" is beyond me. For the record: I reviewed numerous grant applications to various funding agencies from US and Europe. I never encountered a grant application which contained a reference to a non-existing paper.

This answer appears to be primarily responding to other answers and comments and only in part answers the OP. 1 sentence of this answer applies to part of one question the OP asked. Your comment to me included an answer to the other part of the same question. Your answer can be improved by incorporating that part of your comment into your answer. You can further improve it by removing the aspect of speculating on the applicant's intent and comment on what it is best case/worst case scenarios regarding what the applicant did.

@DavidS The advice given is: tell the funding agency what you think happened and then let them figure it out.

@DavidS This answer directly addresses a major problem in the question: the OP says the applicant is making a false claim, but from the OP's description of he came to that conclusion, the conclusion isn't justified. (The OP has evidence that should be further investigated, but there are other plausible explanations for not being able to find the paper, such as an incorrect journal name in the reference.)

@DavidS perhaps this doesn't answer the specific question OP (originally) asked, but since you could say the same about all other answers I don't see why you have singled this one out.

@EspeciallyLime This is the top voted answer and at the time of commenting this there is no accepted answer yet. The issue with answering the question not asked and answering the assumed context of the question is that it isn't clear that it benefits others with the same or similar question. Essentially, its a lower quality answer. I would prefer to see this answer improved, rendering my comments moot so they can be deleted. The other answers are irrelevant if this one can be sufficiently augmented. Hopefully, this helped your understanding.

@DavidS Question: How to investigate further? Answer: reach out to the funding agency. I am not sure why you don't think that this answer applies.

@Aubreal The answer does apply. I think it could be better. Both the question and the answer have been edited and are much more in line. I deleted my initial comment as it is no longer accurate. To change the context, I wouldn't grade this answer an "A" if this were an academic test. I'm not sure why there is extended discussion about this, its literally encouraged by the site to comment to improve the quality of a post. Please review: https://academia.stackexchange.com/tour

@DavidS Yes, that makes sense, thanks.

You only really have a few options, if the granting institution is "typical".

Your best option is to contact the person coordinating the review with your concern (in the NIH hierarchy, that may be a program officer or scientific review officer).
You can ignore the issue.
You can hold hold on to the issue, saving it for synchronous discussion if the review panel functions that way (I suspect anyone else on the panel would be miffed that you didn't raise the issue with the review officer if you did that, and the review officer would probably not be happy either)

FWIW, if a grant reviewer contacted me [the applicant] in any way about the review of one of my grants during the review period, I would immediately contact the Scientific Review Officer for the study section, and maybe (after reading up on the rules) the study section chair. I'd probably request that the reviewer be placed in conflict for the grant, which means (for the NIH, anyway) that the reviewer would not even be allowed to be in the room for the review, let alone submit anything in writing that the rest of the panel had access to.  I suspect that request would be honored. I also suspect that, at the very least, the panel administrators would explain the error of their ways to the reviewer involved (at the very least).
Sitting on top of this analysis is the realization that many people in the room are looking for an excuse to assign a grant an unfundable score (not that I approve of that), and raising this issue during the review may well poison the grant for funding.

@Trunk that sentence is talking about a scenario where a reviewer has contacted the grant writer directly, thus breaking anonymity.

As well as the three options offered, you could of course submit a review that included the statement that one of the references appeared to be spurious.

There is a mismatch between your question and the content of the question. From the content of the question, it looks like you could not find the problematic publication. However, the question you pose is already assuming that you did everything that is possible to find the publication.
First: ask yourself (and SE:Academia community) if you really did everything you could to find the mentioned paper.
Second: since we live in a civilized world (or at least we try to have it that way), there is one important concept:
PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE
So unless you have sound proof of the publication being consciously and delibaretely fake, you should take a more neutral approach to the matter (i.e., replace the false word from the title).
One final consideration:

"checked the google scholar account of the applicant"

Google Scholar (GS) is just the name of a data-harvesting service, powered by a very obscure algorithm developed by an advertising company called Alphabet. If an item has not been indexed by GS, it does not mean the something does not exist. And even if an item is indexed by GS, you still should have reasonable doubts about the accuracy of the item.
If you really want to use efficently your time when looking for articles&co., the same 5 minutes you spend on the internet in Google Scholar, they can be more efficently spent by sending an email to your trusted librarian(s).
Other approaches may include contacting the co-authors, contacting the author, but those may be not viable because of independence or confidentiality of the application review you are performing.

The publisher and the journal of the listed article is online, so I guess Google Scholar search and checking the volume. I did not accuse the applicant, it's just a question if such academic practice is offensive in general.

@xavier which academic practice? You have not established the fact to conclude at a practice. Also, have you considered contacting the journal?

The practice of including a paper that doesn't exist. No need to contact the journal because they have all their issues online. Google Scholar and the worldwide web is enough to know if the paper exist or not.

@xavier As people have suggested, you might find it helpful to contact the author in case there is a benign explanation. If you are 100% convinced that the person deliberately lied, then better inform yours and, most importantly their, responsible department. But as I have mentioned above, even the ex-Dutch minister of Finance lied like that, but since you cannot prove that it was deliberate, then nothing happens.

@DanielHatton Stedman?.. I only found a paper by this name by some E.J. LeFevre, and the corresponding issue can easily be found online, albeit paywalled: https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0040-0912/vol/5/iss/1

@DanielHatton Oh, that makes it a very good example. Admittedly, it is a little bit harder with recent papers - when it comes to 80s and before, I reckon I could remember quite a few articles present in the local library but absent online (JETP would be the most immediate example of such a journal for me). With that said, I am pretty sure there are numerous instances of human error leading to papers not properly appearing on the journal's website, especially if it is something like conference proceedings, but I can not provide any specifics, sadly.

@EarlGrey has mentioned presumption of innocence without given context about how this has happened. Here is one very possible scenario where this is just a mix up:
When there are multiple authors it is easy to get some details wrong, or mix them up. The paper could be published in another journal even with another name. It is entirely possible for other authors to change the title and send paper to another journal after a reject. It is also possible for the author to forget or even never noticed about this issue. At a later date, other authors might have sent an email stating the paper is published and the author has included the reference to the paper, in the original form to their CV.

I often review grant applications for the EU. I regularly encounter this problem, which is why I always spot-check one or two of the references given. However, I am prohibited from contacting the applicant, so I take this up with my contact at the agency. I have also found blatant plagiarism in grant applications that caused the applicant to have to refund money from a previous grant. Sometimes the agency takes no action (a woman in a recent application had an entire paragraph referring to the PI as a man, which made me think copy/paste, but the agency said: that's okay). Sometimes they downscore the application. Sometimes more action is taken, but that is beyond the scope of my review.
So my advice for applicants ist: Make sure your references are findable and correct!

For clarification, you may consider asking the applicant directly. There might be a silly explanation that avoids all confusion.
Of course, depending on the answer of the applicant, you may take the necessary steps.
Claiming something that doesn't exist is of course a very serious academic offense. That is why you should not hesitate asking applicants in case you have doubts or things do not add up. Something polite along the lines "We were checking your CV and we were wondering where we can find your such-and-such publication."
Edit: I answered without looking at the comments. I still believe that directly contacting the author, either personally or through some other channels of the university (e.g. secretary) is possibly the only course of action that can clarify things at this point.

OP is doing a review of grant applicants. OP may not be allowed to contact directly the author(s), but surely OP can mention/note to the comitee evaluating the grant that one of the publications could not be find and additional informations should be required.

Let me add that it is not merely an academic offense, it is also a legal one. You could literally go to jail for this in my country.

@FedericoPoloni Indeed. But obviously this is applied only in some cases, and in some other cases people can get away (or even get promoted) with similar claims: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/dutch-finance-minister-amends-cork-university-degree-error-29195279.html

Just to be crystal clear for anyone reading this, contacting a grant applicant during the process of a grant review about what's in the grant is pretty much universally a very bad idea.  I can't think of a single instance where it would be appropriate.

Actually what the OP did, checking outside sources, is questionable in some grant processes. It is often dictated that only materials in the grant application may be considered, as to prevent page limit cheating, e.g. visit this PDF for 25 more pages of proposal content. I would carefully review the rules before proceeding.

@user71659 There seems to be quite a difference between including outside content beyond page limits and verifying that a paper on a CV actually exists; do you have an actual specific example of a grant process that would forbid checking items on a CV exist? At least for the grants I'm most familiar with, one of the scoring criteria involves evaluating whether the personnel on a proposed grant have the collective background and expertise to do the work.


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Submitting a paper without consent of all authors?
There were three people working on a paper: a PhD student (S1), her advisor (A), and another PhD student (S2).
The advisor A passed away before the paper was finished.
At that moment the amount of work done by corresponding parties could be estimated as S1 - 45%, A - 45%, S2 - 10%.
Both S1 and S2 graduated and S1 is not interested in finishing the paper and doesn't want S2 to finish it saying that his contribution was not sufficient. S2 wants to finish the paper alone.
For the final version, the amount of work done by corresponding parties would be estimated as S1 - 40%, A - 40%, S2 - 20%.
Is it appropriate for S2 to submit the paper as he worked on it? If yes, how to deal with authors? S2 thinks that he would put them in order: S1, A, S2, but knows that S1 won't approve the submission.

Under those circumstances? No. The basic rule is that all co-authors need to consent to submitting the paper. Exactly how to handle the case of a deceased co-author can be tricky (there are questions about it on the site), but if the other living co-author explicitly does not consent then there's not much reason to worry about that aspect.

First, a paper can't be published without the consent of all authors. Since A can't give consent, their estate must be consulted, perhaps the executor, a spouse or similar. Third, if S2 finishes the paper, their "contribution" probably increases as you note, but it is hard to say by how much. It might not be truly possible to give such an estimate since it isn't time in the saddle that matters. Intellectual contribution is much more important, but harder to measure meaningfully.
I won't speak to the order of authorship as it depends too  much on the field.
But S2 can't publish the paper "on their own". A reputable journal will want confirmation from all authors (and probably a legal representative of A).
Sadly, some things need to be abandoned.
S2 might be able to take their own ideas into a different paper, carefully avoiding plagiarism.

This discussion / argument has been moved to chat; friendly reminder to all to "assume good intent" in others' comments, and also to avoid phrasing that could be perceived as condescending.


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Adding an affiliation that doesn't imply a conflict of interest
It is okay to add an affiliation in the paper heading that I did not put in the domain conflicts (DC) at the time of submission? It was only after the submission of the paper that I got hired to a company, hence I submitted the paper without putting the company email domain in the DC during the submission.
I've done my rebuttal (i.e., writting the response letters to the reviewers) partly using the company resources, and the paper got accpeted. Thus the company now wants me to acknowledge and add the company name in the paper title only if allowed. In this situation, is it okay to add the company name in the paper heading?
Note*: What is DC?

Sorry, but I don't understand. What do you mean by "domain of conflict"? What do you mean by adding a company name to the "title"? Do you mean "heading"? Your "rebuttal" to what?

And do you mean "conlict" in the title. I have no idea whether that is something real and can't find a definition.

@Buffy Sorry for confusion. I've revised the question to clarify my points based on your comments. Thanks a lot!

Why would your affiliation pose a conflict of interest? You seem to have aligned interest, actually.

@Buffy -- journals generally won't send manuscripts out for review to people with the same affiliation.  Also, businesses might certainly have a financial conflict of interest.  What if a Pfizer scientist is trying to publish something from an FDA trial, for example.?

@Buffy I think OP's situation is that they did some work, perhaps as an academic, and after submission of the paper, they got a job in industry. They've now done some work on the paper on that company's time during the revision process. Ordinarily, one would have had to disclose potential conflicts of interest like employment on the initial submission (remember: COI does not mean ), but this is not a conflict OP disclosed because, well, it didn't exist at the time. Now the current employer wants them to list the company as an affiliation.

@BryanKrauseisonstrike Thank you for clarifying my situation!

It is unlikely that the paper went to industry for review (at least for most fields I know), so it's unlikely your change of affiliation will impact the review process.
Of course, you don't want anything to pop up later.  You can certainly mention your change of affiliation in your response letter (assuming you're not in a double-blind process) -- or just drop a note to the section editor sitting on top of your review.

Thank you for your answer Scott! To clarify, I'd like to mention few more things. The review was double-blind. The rebuttal was finished, and the paper got accepted. Now, I am at the stage of preparing the final draft of the paper.
I will drop a footnote that 'the work was partly done at xxx company' if I am going to write the company name at the paper first page heading.

But since the chance that the paper had gone to my company people is not zero (although it is practically zero since I am working at a startup company), I am a bit worried though. But my former adivor said no worries since the conference chairs usually do not care of this matter much.


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Can productivity out weigh a bad reference and or relationship with a postdoc advisor? What to do when a relationship sours?
I wanted to do a pivot and go in a different direction due to interest and better funding prospects down the road IMHO by going more translational. I was the first grad student and covid hampered progress, but my committee let me go with just one 1st author and few secondary authorship manuscripts. I stumbled upon a position that I felt would give me an opportunity to grow in the direction I want. The issue is there is a sharp contrast in working styles that cannot be bridged which makes getting anything done painful.
I just started, but I can tell it will be a slog and the advisor and I do not get along. I have some leverage in that the lab is inundated with work and skilled help is scarce. I am also covered on a training grant.
I think there is a way to make this a productive stint, as I have had some initial success pulling together stuff to craft my own unique identity while growing in this new field. However, any transitional award would need input from this individual. I have no faith that they would do right by me and put aside differences if the productivity was there.
How far of a shadow can this person cast over my career? I have not spent much time under their mentorship yet (only 4 months) and my training program allows me to switch to something else (assuming,  I can find a willing taker, but I am free labor). The catch is while I find this person disagreeable, they have the projects that will allow me to demonstrate the skills I want to possess.
How to proceed?

This is hard to assess as there is so much we cannot know. Why would that person even have an interest in "casting a shadow over your career"? Not getting along well is one thing, actively harming somebody else is quite another. And then, we have no idea whether this person has a strong network and influence. Also, if you think any reference of this person would be "bad", don't ask for one in the first place.

@ChristianHennig Obviously I would avoid using this person as a reference but would this not be a red flag? I am trying to balance personally fit with fit for my research goals. This postdoc is a career pivot so my thesis mentor, who is also less senior would not carry as much weight.

Not getting a reference from your postdoc advisor is a definite red flag.

Well, it wouldn't look good, that's true, but it may not do that much damage either. I've never seen an admission decision in which such a thing made the difference.

I didn't specify my postdoc advisor as a reference and had an easy time getting invitations and offers (in Europe). I had other senior and established collaborators that provided excellent references, which surely compensated for that.

@DanielHatton Would you not agree that in the UK, the content of a reference is not as important as it is in the US, but complete absence of a reference would raise eyebrows? Definately when I've written references for people that have not felt they can ask there current primary supervior, I've addressed this absence head on in my reference.

Your question should be edited for clarity and succinctness
I am understanding your question as

I do not get along with my postdoc advisor, but can probably be very productive working at their lab. How much can they hurt my career?

The short answer is - a lot. If your postdoc advisor is truly a vindictive and toxic person they can write a terrible reference letter to your future employers (if you list them as a reference), or just make your life miserable in the future by, say, badmouthing you to whoever they know.
However, this is extremely unlikely to happen if all you have is a simple difference of styles/character.
First of all, postdoc advisors want to see their postdocs hired in as fancy an institution as possible. This sends a signal to future hires - "my postdoc got a job at this ivy league school after working with me, you will too if you join my lab!".
Secondly, advisors have a reputation to uphold. If they are perceived as toxic/difficult towards group members, then that will make future applicants weary of joining their lab.
Finally, if you will be productive as you say you'll be, that should be more than enough for any semi-reasonable PI to be supportive of you and your work. Unless there is a severe personality mismatch, PIs primarily care about your productivity. If that is good, anything else will be secondary.
That being said, if you can find another lab to work with where you'd be more productive and you get along with the PI, then you should absolutely do that. However, be mindful of your timeline and do so sooner rather than later. Postdoc positions aren't forever.


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Choosing between a good postdoc position and an assistant professorship
I have done a PhD (mathematics) at an average university and, while absolutely loving my line of research, these years were quite unsatisfactory, for diverse reasons. While working hard, I ended up having a quite low number of publications with respect to my peers in other groups or universities. Also, I grew quite tired of the city and its overall atmosphere.
Not finding better alternatives, I momentarily stayed as a postdoc and continued working on my field, finally starting to publish stuff (mostly with other groups) hoping to enhance my possibilities of eventually finding more appealing positions.
Eventually, it worked: I obtained a good postdoc offer. The position would be well-paid, in a reputable university full of great researchers, in a nice city and country full of perspectives and opportunities, and also extending to a sufficiently long period not to have to worry about searching another job soon; but clearly the issue would present itself sooner or later.
Meanwhile, my current institution has opened a number of assistant professorships, one of these in my field. These are not tenure-track positions but, by winning one of them, it is fairly likely that I would ultimately land on an actual tenure-track position: a thing that cannot be underestimated in such an overcrowded job market like academia is. Conversely, the salary is sensibly lower than the one comprised in the postdoc offer, and of course I would still find myself in the same environment (now with loads of teaching duties in the way too, to which I'm completely unprepared).
So, in the case I'll win the assistant professorship, I will find myself at a crossroads:
take it with all its disadvantages, or accept the postdoc challenge and see what I can do in a likely better environment?
Obviously only I am entitled to take the decision; nevertheless, I am hoping to find some advice from some more experienced people who may have found themselves in similar situations.
Thanks in advance and good holidays!

This is an opinion-based question. I think most answers will converge to taking the postdoc position but there are several factors that you alone are aware of; Family, What will boot your career, etc. One hint: you can always collaborate with other researchers even if they are not in the same university. (Actually, sometimes it works much better)

I was in a similar situation. It depends on the postdoc and the asst. prof job. The postdoc was literally my top choice, and I was interested in doing a postdoc. What was good about the prof job? Well, I would be a prof... I'm a postdoc currently.

Are you able to find out where people who took each path eventually went? If you can see a path to a place you want to go it may be easier to decide.

" it is fairly likely that I would ultimately land on an actual tenure-track position" -- this I assume is a guess.   Things could change.  We may have another pandemic for example.

Here are a couple of things to think about:

How badly do you want any academic position?

Would you prefer getting any permanent academic position at all, no matter where, what teaching load, etc; over not getting an academic position and going for another career path (with a PhD in Mathematics, involuntary unemployment is not a likely prospect)? The answer will tell you whether playing it safe and/or settling for a less exciting position is something you should do or not.

Would the assistant professorship be something you do primarily in the hope that your university will show its gratitude and give a tenure-track position down the line?

It seems unwise to me to treat a temporary position as being on the "tenure-track-track". If your university had the will and the ability to make some kind of commitment, they would have gone for a tenure-track position straight-away. Counting on an unwritten reward down the line is how people get burned.

Would you like to ultimately end up at an institution that cares a lot about teaching?

Some places hire great researchers and hope that they can teach, other institutions really want to be sure that their tenure-track staff can teach well. If you aim for the latter, getting some teaching experience now is actually a great asset. If you aim for the former, continue concentrating on getting good papers out.

Carefully inspect the assistant professorship regarding its nature.

The usual advice that going for an assistant professorship over a postdoc is based on the assumption that the former is tenure-track. If it isn't, is it really "above" a postdoc in a meaningful way? Or is it just a fancy title for a teaching-heavy postdoc-style position?


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Can an advisor use part of an unpublished paper in a project deliverable without your consent?
A previous position of mine was funded by a EU research project, which requires publishing a project deliverable. These project deliverables are public and citable documents that are available online and are usually indexed by research databases. In a deliverable of this project, my ex-advisor used text, figures, and tables of an unpublished research paper of which I am the lead author and which I still intend to publish. Initially, I was not listed as an author of the deliverable; in a later version I was. Most importantly, I was never informed about this or asked for my consent.
My question is: Is this ethical/correct/appropriate? I’m not against of reporting my work to the deliverable as I have done it during the course of two years contributing to several of the deliverables. My problem is that I think as the lead author I have the right to be informed that the text and results of the paper that I wrote are going to be used in a deliverable.

"Legal" is almost certainly the wrong way to think about almost any issue concerning inter-author disputes on academic publications: so far as I know, the law doesn't pertain to them in any useful way.  Even in non-academic life, a wide-range of publication sins -- e.g. plagiarizing, making stuff up in non-fiction pieces -- may not be illegal so much as universally frowned upon.  I mean: how much money did you lose on this transaction?  In a strict sense the answer is "zero"; in a broader sense, the answer is "something, but it's impossible to quantify."

Thanks for the comment, but is such an act appropriate or ethical?

@PooyanJamshidi The appropriateness depends on the nature of the "project deliverable", as well a legal issues such as the relevant contracts.

In most circumstances that I have encountered, the answer is absolutely yes it is not just OK but common. If you were supported by a project, and the work was done under that project, well, a report has to be made on the status of the project to the sponsers. Would you rather write an entirely separate report, or forward on the draft of the paper? You, having done work on the project, owe a report of what you did.

The answer by @xLeitix seems to explain the situation. The question should be edited to include the info that it's an EU project and add the part about being able to publish the paper afterwards.

@PeteL.Clark, surely legal is the correct way to consider a copyright violation?

@user2768: If no already published work was copied, then it seems very nebulous whether a coauthorship dispute constitutes a copyright violation.  As I said in my previous comment, there is usually no clear financial gain by either party, so what is the legal system supposed to do: intervene in a setting whose cultural norms it does not understand just to rule one party or the other correct?  If there is a clearly broken contract, then the legal system would have something to go on, otherwise not so much.

@PeteL.Clark copyright surely applies to unpublished work? (At least in some countries.) Nonetheless, copyright doesn't apply if the OP's contribution has been acknowledged in the deliverable. (The OP makes no mention of any such acknowledgement.)

@poojan: To be clear, I am not saying the advisor's behavior is appropriate or ethical.  I'm just saying that I know of no laws that it violates.  On the other hand, it sounds like I am not in the same country as you, and you haven't even specified your country.  Nor have you given any information about the nature of the "project deliverable," its financial value, etc.  So while I don't think that legal recourse is the right way to go here, certainly I have no idea, nor do I think it's on-topic for this site.  If you want to know about the ethics, please provide more detailed information.

Questions of ethicality usually don't have a clear-cut answer, and this is no exception. Fundamentally, you should of course retain a say in what happens to the research that you produced as a grad student. On the other hand, it also seems completely fair and natural to include your work in reports to the funding agency that sponsored your work. Objecting against this may be an ethical violation in and of itself. Strictly speaking, and I am definitely not a lawyer, not reporting work that has been done in the context and using the money of an EU project may be a breach of the contract that your home institution has with the European Union (one would need to know the terms of the framework programme that the institution needs to sign when joining a project).
However, your main problem seems to be (from a comment):

EU Project deliverables are usually published and a citable piece of work and they are different from NSF progress report. If it was a progress report or a poster it was totally fine with me, but when a major part of the paper now is published in the report I cannot submit my manuscript to a venue anymore unless I make a major revision.

Based on my experience in 3 EU projects, this is, in the generality you describe, just not true. Deliverables per themselves can be public or confidential, which is described in your Description of Work. Even if they are public, that usually just means that they are uploaded to your project's website (and maybe some third-party project result aggregator, depending on what clusters and collaborations your project is part of). While these deliverables do get the occasional citation, they are not formally published and should really not preempt further publication, even in verbatim. I would see this in the same way as a preprint - for most journals, uploading a preprint to arXiv or PeerJ does not mean that you can't submit to a journal, so why would your text appearing in an un-reviewed project report?
It is also my practical experience that most scientific reports consist largely, or at least to a significant part, of copied papers, some of them published and some unpublished at the time of submission. Hence, your ex-advisor's behavior is at least completely in line with what other PIs do and expect in such projects.
That all being said, I have once worked in a project that, by default, published a book volume once a year with Springer which collected all reports of the project. This would indeed count as formal publication. However, even if this or a similar arrangement is the case for you, a compromise could be found that your work appears in the "official" report to the EU and is retracted from the resulting book publication.

may be I'm convinced that it does not prevent me from submitting the work to a journal or conference later. But as the lead author of the paper who wrote the whole text and done the research, do I have any right regarding the draft? Can the other authors who only provided minor comments use the text and the reported results "as it is" in the report? Definitely, I'm not against of reporting the work but insist on doing that. However, I don't understand whether my work can be taken as it is without even without asking me?

@poojan Of course you have rights about this draft, and you should definitely be told / asked. But I if they asked you, could you really have said no? You have been paid by this project, after all. You may have written the manuscript with little input, but the money that paid you while you did so came from this project. It's best to consider this entire reporting thing an obligation not to your PI, but to the funding agency that paid you.

To be honest, I would have said yes but only after some changes. I only found out about the report by chance when I was googling about my research, and it was so surprising to see your name is not on in the report in version 1.0 and after a few weeks your name is listed on the report in version v1.1. The whole thing was a surprise to see...

My assumption here is that this is a project where, though you developed it, you developed it in collaboration with your advisor, with advisor's funding, and within the advisor's broader research area. I also expect that when (or if) the paper is submitted, it will have the advisor's name on it, and you agree that's reasonable. If these aren't true, maybe some of the following would change.
Some examples of "project deliverables" and what I'd think:
Report to funding agency, public or private, or industrial collaborators: absolutely appropriate for your ex-advisor to show the results of your collaborative work to the funding agency.
Public seminars, posters: appropriate and common for your advisor to assume it's OK to show your results. You should hopefully be credited when this happens. If you have objections (i.e. you're worried about being scooped), you need to tell your advisor first.
Other deliverables: I could imagine your research being used as an example figure in a manual for a piece of equipment. This might be a bit less clear, and it wouldn't be unreasonable for the student to be credited - but I don't know if the student should be able to veto this.
Review paper: I have seen advisors discuss unpublished results in review papers, even including figures. This is sensible if either a) the paper is currently in submission, and expected to be published before the review comes out, or b) it is expected that the paper will not be published in its current form. If a), it would be polite to ask the students' permission. If b), the student should be a co-author on the review.
Separate research publication purporting to be original research: absolutely not OK. Student should be listed as author and needs to consent.

This is not the place for legal questions, and we are not lawyers. (I am not a lawyer either.) Your specific situation (contracts you've signed) and local laws are the only relevant things here. You should consult a lawyer.
That said, in general it will probably be the case that as a graduate student you are considered to be like a faculty member of the university when it comes to intellectual property. You probably retain the copyright to scholarly works you produce, but the University probably retains the right to use your copyrighted work for business purposes. Even if they did not, you would have to show some kind of harm under copyright law for a legal battle to make any sense.
Whether it is ethical or appropriate depends a lot on the situation, and "project deliverable" is extremely vague. It would not be appropriate for your adviser to publish your work in an academic venue without your consent. However, if your work was funded by an external agency such as NSF, NIH, or a private foundation then your research was paid for by that agency. It would probably be appropriate for your adviser to show your results in (for example) an NSF progress report or an NSF poster presentation to demonstrate the status of the work.

Thanks for the comment. EU Project deliverables are usually published and a citable piece of work and they are different from NSF progress report. If it was a progress report or a poster it was totally fine with me, but when a major part of the paper now is published in the report I cannot submit my manuscript to a venue anymore unless I make a major revision.

I'm not at all familiar with the EU funding mechanisms. Hopefully someone else will chime in.

@poojan: This is worth clarifying in the question, since I don't think it will be clear to most people.  My previous interpretation was that doing it without telling you might be considered impolite, but that including this material in the report was reasonable because it was harmless.  However, if it actually prevents publication elsewhere, that's a major problem.

@poojan I think this is concern is unfounded. See my answer for details.

I agree with the other answers that "legal" is probably not the right way to think of this. However, I disagree with the other answers who claim that it might be ethical as long as it is not an "official publication" or something of the kind.
If the project deliverable will be available to the public, no matter whether it is an official publication or not, I would think it is simply unethical to put your work in there without your consent. Generally speaking, I don't think it can be ethical to put someone else's work online, no matter the medium, no matter your authority relationship with them, without asking them for permission beforehand. (What matters to be is the public aspect; if the deliverable was an internal thing which didn't end up online, I would say otherwise.)
Of course, as other answers pointed out, if you are being funded/employed by this project, you may have a legal or ethical duty to accept that your work ends up in the deliverables; but I still think your advisor should at least let you know that this will happen, and should take into account reasonable objections (e.g., "I am concerned that the deliverable will be a problem when writing a paper with the work"; or "the work is unfinished and I am concerned it is not of sufficient quality to be published").

I agree that the advisor should tell the student, but it's possible that he did and OP simply does not like it. It's also possible that it is just so common that all work done by project members is reported in these deliverables that the PI assumed that it is implied that this will also be true for OP's work (although of course "explicit" is always better than "implied").

In this case, neither it was discussed nor the student's work was acknowledged in the original version of the report. In the later version of the report, the student name is listed but again without any permission or asking...


text:
Submitting a note on the falsehood of a conjecture to the journal the conjecture originally appeared in
I wrote a short note, showing that someone's recent conjecture is false. Is it a good idea to submit the manuscript to the same journal the conjecture originally appeared in? Will it expedite the reviewing process?
Update: After reading the comments in here and talking to my advisor, I ended up submitting the manuscript(including the counterexample and a little improvement of the original result) to the same journal as the original was appeared in. Paper got accepted in less than 40 days. I highly believe in my case, choosing the same journal shortened the reviewing process significantly.

See for example http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=362841&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D362841

Congratulations on your (remarkably speedy) publication!

I think you are correct to consider first the journal in which the paper stating the conjecture was published.  You should still make an evaluation of whether that is the best place to submit.
(I am in a similar situation myself -- in a graduate research seminar I am leading with a colleague, a student decided to read a 2012 paper which states a certain conjecture and derives partial results.  Within a week my colleague showed how to use the tools developed in the earlier paper to give a complete proof of the conjecture.  In the last few weeks, I have worked together with the student and my colleague to prove similar, but stronger results.  We are now almost finished with the writeup and thinking about where to submit.  So the thought process is fresh.)
The main question to ask is: might there be some reason for which the journal who published the conjecture is not the best home for a paper which resolves the conjecture?  Some reasons:
1) The journal is too strong.
Top journals are (and must be) extremely selective about what they publish.  Resolving a conjecture that appears in a top journal is a distinctly positive sign as to the value of the conjecture, but it is not conclusive.  Maybe the conjecture was not such an important part of the paper.  Especially if you have disproven the conjecture, is it possible that the conjecture was just not fully thought through by the authors?  I cannot help but think of Grothendieck's notorious "Hodge's general conjecture is false for trivial reasons," which adjusted the statement of one of the most famous problems in mathematics -- this is one of the Millennium Prize Problems -- to its current form.  And of course this paper of his is famous and important.  It just was not published in the kind of journal it would have been if it had "really resolved the Hodge Conjecture".  I hope you see what I mean.
This reminds me of a curious feature of the Millennium Prize Problems: you win the $1 million for proving any of the seven problems.  Do you win the money if you disprove one of them?  The text of the prize does not guarantee this.  I think this is pretty dopey (and I would guess that from public pressure alone they would have to cough up the money), but there is some sentiment that if you disprove a conjecture by a "mere counterexample," that may be less exciting.
2) The journal is too weak.
It could go the other way as well.  Perhaps what you had to do to disprove the conjecture was truly heroic, and the construction is interesting and important beyond the scope of the original conjecture.  If so, consider aiming higher.  (I am mildly kicking around submitting the paper alluded to above to a better journal than the one the paper we are riffing off was published in, because that paper gave partial and conditional results towards a conjecture and we can do significantly more than proving the conjecture.  My guess though is that in the end the thought of submitting to the same journal in which the conjecture was made will win out.)
3) A paper resolving the conjecture may be out of scope for the journal.
This sounds unlikely, but it can happen and has happened to me.  I read an article published in the College Mathematics Journal which ended by asking three questions.  The last, most interesting question was one I had previously asked on math.SE.  After putting a bounty on it (who said SE reputation is not worth anything?) I got a wonderful answer by Niels Diepeveen.  So I immediately wrote up the answer into a (joint!) paper and submitted it to the CMJ.  They were surprisingly unpersuaded by the idea that they would want to publish a paper resolving a question that had just appeared in one of their articles.  They found the construction too technical to be suitable for their target audience of undergraduates and college math teachers. After many revisions, the paper was eventually published in The American Mathematical Monthly.
In general though, unless you feel your paper is significantly too strong or obviously inappropriate to be published in the journal in which the conjecture it resolves was published, sending it there seems like a good first choice.  They certainly do not have to accept your paper, but if they're not going to then they probably need to explain themselves a bit...in practice, if the paper is a bit borderline, I think many referees and editors would find it easier to accept the paper and not look hypocritical.

Very interesting points. In my case the journal im thinking of is JMAA so I'm realistic by not sending it to Advances in Math , JAMS or Annals of Math level journal.That said the my counterexample is rather elementary, and I'm trying to find out the right setting that makes the original conjecture work.

The Clay Millenium prize rules do specify what happens in the case of a disproof: "In the case of the P versus NP problem and the Navier-Stokes problem, the SAB will consider the award of the Millennium Prize for deciding the question in either direction. In the case of the other problems if a counterexample is proposed, the SAB will consider this counterexample after publication and the same two-year waiting period as for a proposed solution will apply. [cont]"

"[cont] If, in the opinion of the SAB, the counterexample effectively resolves the problem then the SAB may recommend the award of the Prize. If the counterexample shows that the original problem survives after reformulation or elimination of some special case, then the SAB may recommend that a small prize be awarded to the author. The money for this prize will not be taken from the Millennium Prize Problem fund, but from other CMI funds." http://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems/rules-millennium-prizes

This is a comprehensive answer. +1. Thank you especially for writing up all this after the OP accepted my earlier answer. Yours is definitely superior. @BigM: please consider unaccepting my answer and accepting this one - it would be the Right Thing to do. (Or wait for a day, in case something even better comes along, though I doubt it.)

Also (but maybe this falls under your third case), some journals have length restrictions. The paper resolving a conjecture may be too long or (in the OP's case) too short for the journal that published the conjecture.

Well original paper is 14 page long and my short note is 4 page , :-( ,right now. I am trying to come up with the right setting to make the conjecture work. In that case my note might be slightly longer. Regardless it will be a short note.

Submitting your manuscript to the journal the original conjecture was published in is probably a good idea. After all, if the journal published the original conjecture, then the conjecture is obviously in the journal's scope... and so should be a counterexample.
In addition, your submission may well be handled by the same associate editor, who may be able to call on the same reviewers as for the original conjecture. (Of course, it would be a good idea to get at least some new eyes to look at matters, to avoid academic inbreeding.) This could accelerate the review process somewhat.
Beyond that, you likely won't get any preferential treatment beyond what the shortness of your manuscript and the immediate relevancy of your counterexample warrant.