text:
How to deal with presentation time running out in a scientific conference?
I understand that it is not a good idea to speak more after your time is out during a conference presentation. So we generally distribute our total times among each slide depending the contents and priority during the preparation. But sometimes what happens one/two particular slides take little more time. As a results your time goes out before summarizing your presentation.
So I sometimes skip my summary and acknowledgement slides to avoid the loss of discussion time. I am wondering whether this is a good idea, or whether I should finish my talk with more 30–40 seconds?

Rehearse. Rehearse. Rehearse. Edit down to fit the available time. Repeat. If you can't do the pitch within the stated time, you're saying too much.

If you take 30-40 seconds longer, that's 30-40 seconds you are taking away from the speaker after you, unless you come right before the coffee break.

@StephanKolassa In the latter case you are stealing 30-40 seconds from the coffee break. That could make some people really mad! ;-)

There seems to be an implicit assumption in the question that each slide in a talk should normally take the same amount of time.  But that would just be silly. Some slides need only five seconds; others need five full minutes.  The only thing that matters is the total length of the talk.

Do not skip the summary slide. If you are already rushing, many people will have no idea what is going on by the time you get to the end slides. That's fine, as long as you can summarize it coherently at the end. Anyone who is super interested can ask about it later over drinks. So sometimes you want to think in your head, "slides 12 & 15 are nice to have but if time gets short, I will skip past the details on those slides to give me time to talk to summarize".

Do not skip your acknowledgement slides. Especially if you are working in a large collaboration, it is discourteous. I remember when people don't thank me for my contributions, and I am sure to repay the favour. ;) I would put the acknowledgement slide near the beginning, so it is out the way quickly. (By the way, I am not saying you should spend five minutes on that slide. I am just saying, show the slide, say thanks, make your joke about getting your excuses in early, move on. But everyone is happy that you thanked them properly.)

Additional thought: When rehearsing, note how long it should take you to get to significant points in you presentation, and plan in advance what you're going to drop later in the presentation if you're running late or add if it's going faster than expected. Then watch the time during the actual presentation and adjust accordingly. In other words, structure it the same way you would a set list for a musical performance; know what's essential and what isn't and be prepared to correct for estimation errors to use the allotted time optimally.

@JeffE I think you mean "some five minutes need only one slide; some five seconds require a full slide".

@JiK  Exactly so.

First, some conferences have really strict timing and you will be given no extra time.
Second, if there is important slide or two, just do it. But make sure that you only slightly extend your time (e.g. 10%). If you are going to extend it by 50%, or 200% (I saw that, and I was pissed at both the speaker and even more - the chair for allowing that) - please, don't.
Side note: as a chair I am an ass. And while I give something like 1 min grace time (for 15 min talks), then after that:

speaker: "But there is an important slide afterwards!"
me: "But not as important as other participants' time."

EDIT: By all means I recommend rehearsing and finishing on, or before, time. I only answer the question - whether to use extra 40 sec for 2 unfinished slides or not. "You should prepare to avoid such situation" is as on-topic as "you should go fishing instead of attending a conference".
(If the question is "Given X, should I do A or B?" all legitimate answers should assume "X", even if it is a suboptimal/nasty/unprofessional/embarrassing situation.)

+1 for the last line.  If only that happened more often.

I recall a conference where a well known theoretical physicist went on for about 45 min describing some QED calculations, totally oblivious to the increasing warnings of the chairman (the allotted time was about 20 min). When he eventually concluded that his calculation showed that a certain effect was at the level of 10^-21 -- totally unmeasurable -- the room erupted in an uproar...

That's not being an ass – that's preventing the speakers from making asses out of themselves.

@J.R. Once I said to a relatively important professor (wrt to the conference importance), something in the line of "But do you value yourself over the time itself?" (on a physics conference, BTW).

In grad school we learned a cool trick for chairing sessions that have speakers who won't stop at the appointed time. After showing the 5 minute and the one minute warning, if the speaker makes no sign of stopping you get up (you have to sit in the front row) and stand, smiling, with your arms crossed. Every 10 seconds you take a step towards the speaker. Normal people stop immediately after the first step (you are invading their space), most stop after 3. Once you are close enough to grab the mike, do it and thank the speaker and carry on.

"if there is important slide or two, just do it. But make sure that you only slightly extend your time" - I find this objectionable.  I object to the idea that "if your slide is important, just go ahead and go over time".  Going over time is impolite and rude to others, period.  Yes, even if it's "only" 10%.  Yes, even if your slide is "important".  Everything thinks their own slides are important.  If you didn't plan ahead enough to stay within time, then that's your problem -- someone else's failure to plan ahead sufficiently is not a good excuse for being impolite by going over time.

A 10% overrun is pretty significant: you shouldn't even do that. Look at it this way: unless your talk is pretty awesome, you've lost a large fraction of the audience by the end. And, let's face it, if you're overrunning, your talk probably wasn't all that awesome. So a 10% overrun on a 20-minute talk is asking a large fraction of the room to sit there being bored for two more minutes. Try it: sit and do nothing for two minutes. That's an eternity.

if there is important slide or two — Then show them first.

@D.W. Going over time is not always under the speaker's control, especially at more informal venues where questions can arise during the talk.

@user168715, going over time is over the speaker's control -- the speaker can monitor time on the fly and adjust as keshlam explains.  Anyway, most conference presentations do not involve significant questions during the talk, so that's really an edge case.  There are always exceptions but focusing too much on them can distract from what's important.  Discussion-heavy talks are really a separate subject of their own.

Well, I disagree with the ass statement. Although I wouldnt allow for 1 minute grace (or do you mean into the Q&A)? Into Q&A is ok for me; I believe the next talk has to start precisely on time, to allow the audience to switch between parallel sessions.

As a rule of thumb you should aim your presentation to be finished 2 to 3 minutes before the allotted time. This way, slight delays like the ones you mention (in the sub-1-minute range) should not require you to skip any material or cut into the discussion time.
However, even if you do not do this, cutting 30 seconds of discussion seems like the lesser evil as compared to skipping over slides, which is often perceived as a sign of a badly prepared talk (at least in my circles skipping slides is considered at least slightly unprofessional). Even if this is not the case, 30 seconds of discussion seems like such an irrelevantly short time that I can't imagine changing my presentation for it (in slightly larger conference halls it may take the student volunteer longer than 30 seconds to get a microphone to a person asking a question).

This. Don't plan to be on time. Plan to be under time.

Never go over time. Never. That's really it. Harsh but true.
If you're routinely going over time, you're saying too much, or saying it wrong. Always plan to end 1 minute early.
Re-think what you're saying.
I go to conferences where people present slides and slides full of text. Nobody but nobody reads this stuff, let alone memorises it. Cut that stuff out.
If you absolutely have to present tables, references, etc etc, this should be kept to a minimum, like two slides. Ideally, ditch all that stuff, you and your talk will be far, far more memorable.

In general, I would try to adhere to your presentation time as closely as possible. If all that's left are summary or acknowledgment comments, I'd simply leave them up on the board while the first questions are being asked. However, if you have a critical content slide—the one that delivers your "punchline"—that you haven't talked about, then you should use the time.

"However, if you have a critical content slide (...) then you should use the time." - or better yet, do not place it at the end of the presentation. Presentations are not mystery films that rely on giving away as little as possible until the very end to keep up the suspense. This doesn't mean that a talk should be boring, but the goal of a mystery movie is to open up more questions along the way and possibly provide a few red herrings, whereas the goal of a conference talk is to gradually answer questions.

+1 for @O.R.Mapper's comment.  The punchline should come first if possible, or at least early,  but certainly not last.

You should probably not skip your summary talk. If you are running out of time you should notice this early, and skip some of the previous slides so you can get to your summary on time. Regarding obviously skipping slides looking unprofessional, you should use something like the Presenter View on PowerPoint if possible, so you can skip slides or show other slides of more interest to your particular audience without them seeing you run through everything.
You don't need to read out your acknowledgements. Few people want to hear them, especially if it takes away time from actually presenting your science in a short talk. Just put them on screen as you finish.

But sometimes what happens one/two particular slides take little more time. As a results your time goes out before summarizing your presentation.

It's easy to see how this could happen. Somewhere in your talk, you have the nitty-gritty details, and it's hard to rush through that material.
Perhaps the best way to address this is by adding some slack time to your presentation, either by finding a way to get through the other slides in less time, or by finding a slide or two that can be removed from the presentation altogether.

So I sometimes skip my summary and acknowledgement slides to avoid the loss of discussion time.

I think you can get away with not talking all the way through an acknowledgement slide. There's a good chance that most folks in the audience won't know who those people are anyway, and hearing their names isn't going to change anything. You can always put their names up, along with where they are from, and say something like, "Without the hard work of these talented associates and colleagues, this research would not have been possible," and leave it at that – particularly if time is a precious commodity.
Skipping the summary seems like a bad idea, though. You should be able to pace yourself so that you have a minute or two to summarize your accomplishments.

Plan your presentation so that about 10% to 20% of your time and slide allotment is optional detail material. Schedule this material right before your summary and conclusion, which should be really well timed. Once you only have time for your conclusion + 30 seconds or so, quickly wrap up your current slide and run through your conclusion. You will look really professional by finishing up a few seconds before your time is up - which reputation will result in more invites to present.
The real kicker is that all those extra slides never go to waste - they are slides for the inevitable questions that your audience will ask. Whther in the presentation hall or the bar afterwards, as professional as finishing on time is, wait until your audience sees you pull up a slide to address every question asked.

I have a few suggestions; first, if this really happens that you are out of time with only the summary slide remaining, just show the slide.  Maybe only speak about it for a second and leave it up for people to read while you answer questions.
Really what you do is be conscious about your remaining time during the talk.  If you are getting close to the end, and close to running out of time, maybe skip an earlier slide or a proof so you can make sure to get to your conclusion.
Taking 30 seconds or a minute over is usually fine. Whoever is chairing the session should be giving you a time warning, and then you can quickly finish up.  If they have to warn you more than once that you are out of time, you will be making a poor impression on the audience.

Not all conferences are equal. In some smaller workshops it is often perfectly alright to speak a little bit longer, and 40 seconds should not be a problem at all. In such smaller conferences and workshops, people often discuss rather freely and in detail on various aspects, and there is usually no need to maintain an excessively strict time schedule, except for the respect for the organizers, the chairperson and the colleagues - which are all doubtlessly important.
One may also observe how such cases have been handled in previous sessions (from my experience there is always at least one speaker who is not respecting the time schedule). In such smaller conferences it is also sometimes tolerated to interrupt the speaker with a question, and the time used for this interruption should obviously be taken into account by the chairperson.
In other cases, such as large conferences with parallel sessions, timing is absolutely crucial and I would rather stop the talk at most 30 seconds after the "red light bulb" goes on than trying to hastily convey all the information that I had originally planned to present. Fortunately I don't remember that this has ever happened to me. In such situations, which of course can and should be avoided with appropriate rehearsal, I would rather skip a result or an entire subtopic of the talk than the acknowledgments. The summary does not necessarily require an explanation if there is no time left and I agree that it may be sufficient to show it as final transparency; but I think that the acknowledgments are more important. One possibility to avoid such a situation is to acknowledge the coworkers and the funding agencies at the beginning of the talk.

It comes down to how well you prepare. After practising a trial version of your talk with own research group and taking on board their changes, it's well worth practising again.  This could be in front of the same group, but better to grab some people at a similar level who might be interested either in the work itself or in you returning the favour (especially important for postgrads, help each other out).  Then you'll get a much better feel for your real timings.
If you have a good summary slide, just displaying that as you finish can gain you a minute or so as well.

If you tend to go over time then you are not pacing yourself throughout the presentation.
When preparing for the presentation you should determine when you are showing each slide throughout the presentation. Don't assume however that every slide will take equally long to talk about. A sequence of 5 diagrams (explaining a sequence of events for example) can take as long as a single list.
During the presentation keep an eye on the timer and when you notice you are lagging behind you can then say less about some less important slides. Conversely if you are getting ahead you can talk some more about the important ones (or just let it spill over into the questions slot).
Prepare those optional sections ahead of time while scripting out your talk.

Keep a timer and have a trigger that tells you when you have two or three minutes left.  A vibrating alarm on a watch or cell phone is best.  If you haven't gotten to the punch line yet, go there now.
You've now got a minute to rush through the remaining preamble, and then you have a "luxurious" minute or two to cover that point that you want to hit.
This is beneficial for two reasons

You don't look like a hack by going over and
In the scenario where you go over, you are rushing through what you think is the most important part of the presentation.  That you aren't getting there until slide n-1 is a another topic, but if you give truncate something in the middle of the talk, you can then give your punchline the time it deserves.

Now, the discussion period will probably involve you answering questions by showing those middle slides you rushed through, but you're now being respectful by sticking to time and controlling the conversation.  Win-Win.

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


text:
What exactly is “quantification”?
As I’m writing my final words within a research paper, I was curious regarding the term quantification of results.
Namely I’ve performed a correlation analysis in a quasi-experiment. The research is quantitative and purely related to software engineering.
My findings were that the two measured variables do correlate. Now, before I start getting into anything, what exactly specifies quantifying results of e.g. this correlation analysis?

I think you are confusing "quantification of results" with "quantitative analysis" and "quantitative variables".  Since you have quantitative variables and have performed quantitative analysis (correlation), your results are, by definition, quantified.  There is no separate "quantification of results" step.

There are two ways to report your findings:  Qualitatively and Quantitatively.
Qualitatively is just using words.  So you could say "we see good correlation between the datasets in the two experiments, but experiment A shows a slight bias at small time."
Quantitative analysis uses numbers.  You could say instead "Correlation analysis shows both datasets are correlated with p < 0.05.  Experiment A shows a bias of 0.1 at times less than one hour, and the correlation coefficient of both datasets using partial data fitting (I just made that up) is 0.13 with a t-critical value of 0.2.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


text:
Is it acceptable to drink alcohol in front of senior staff during semi-official occasions?
I am a graduate student, and because of the department's projects, partnerships with other institutions, and conferences, I am often out of office with the senior staff (supervisor, department head, other senior researchers and management, etc.).
After the work (e.g. meetings, presentations), it is often the case to attend social events (e.g. conference dinner or reception), or simply spend the free time with my colleagues (e.g. dinner in a hotel or somewhere out). During such events, which I consider also as partially work but not that official, people drink alcoholic beverages. Since I am often the only graduate student and the youngest person in the group (and usually the difference to the next person in age is >15 years), I am worried that in my case it might not be acceptable to drink and that it may project a bad image about myself. So I am wondering whether to always abstain in such occasions.
Of course this is not about getting drunk, it is about a glass of wine or two along a meal.
This also includes flights. When flying I always have a beer or glass of wine to fall asleep easily and to mitigate my fear of flying, but sometimes I am seated close to my supervisor or colleague.
I am not sure about the customs in academia, so I am asking: is it acceptable to drink alcoholic beverages in front of senior staff? (Again, to a limited extent.)
I could have asked in the Workplace SE, but I think that academia has a different etiquette.

Yes. It is acceptable. It doesn't matter what your age is or what is your position compared to others. I'm in Europe.

Acceptable to drink, yes... Acceptable to get anywhere near drunk, most definitely not.

This has to depend hugely on where you are. The question would be enhanced if you confirm that you are in the US - I can't imagine a Brit or Australian even asking this question. In some departments, a grad student who did not avail themselves of free drinks might be seen as a bit odd ...

@Keith I agree that it depends hugely, but disagree that the question should be revised. The question would be better if it was useful to everyone, and not just to those who happen to be in the same country as OP. I tried to write a generally applicable response in my answer.

If you're in engineering, it is practically a requirement, and that spills over (pardon the pun) into computer science.

About planes ... as always you have to plan for after the event. If you are going to be renting a car on arrival it would help to have at least on sober driver in the bunch. On a transoceanic flight there is usually plenty of time to sober up, but a two hour city-to-city hop is another matter. As an aside, after a very long conference day my adviser once said to me "I know this place we're going for dinner. They have a bar. Let's go early."

There will be people with strong feelings about what is acceptable regarding drinking, and it is impossible to satisfy them all. (I have heard reports of senior faculty expressing disapproval of a postdocs choice to only have two beers.)
When it comes to more institutional acceptance, the situation will vary. For example, when I came to Cambridge,UK, as a PhD student, there was a Wine & Cheese event to get to know the faculty members of the college. So drinking in front of them was not merely tolerated, but actively encouraged.

Putting ice in good whiskey is universally unacceptable, but I think the answer may depend on which country you are in. If you are 20 in the USA, then no. Otherwise, you are an adult and you decide.

Purists thrown upon, but tolerate, ice elsewhere.

The safest rule is "do what others do." (But no more, and possibly less than, what they do.)
If everyone drinks, and you don't, that might be taken badly, as someone else pointed out. And if you drink and no one else does, that might be worse.
When I was younger, my rule was to drink if others did, but to have one or two less. If any one calls you on it, you can point to your "juniority." Otherwise, you're just "fitting in" without going overboard.

I might be inclined to believe(maybe not rationally) that someone who won't drink is an alcoholic.

@Cruncher: You're partly right. One person I know who doesn't drink is a REFORMED alcoholic. As for me, I drink but "sparingly."

'If everyone drinks, and you don't, that might be taken badly' I doubt it.

@Cruncher: That's a pretty serious leap.  There are lots of reasons a person might choose not to drink, many of them are totally innocuous, and none of them are really anyone else's business.

To fit in for social purposes one can always order a Arnold Palmer or a Shirley Temple or a tonic-n-tonic.

@Jigg Especially in Japan it might be considered very rude if you do not join your superiors for drinks - it is very much expected. (If you do not want to drink come by car, that is actually an acceptable reason.)

@Cruncher: I may be very surprising, but in France (and I guess in most Western European countries), not drinking is totally accepted, and almost noone will question you about it.

This depends not only on where you are, but what group you are in and what people in particular you are speaking about.
I have met both "senior staff" who get so drunk that they wouldn't remember whether you were even present, and I've known those who would probably disapprove of an undergrad having a glass of wine. The majority fall somewhere in between.
At the end of the day, it is quite hard to tell. For instance, a very religious person may be against alcohol consumption. Or a person from a culture where deference from juniors is expected may consider drinking when with a senior disrespectful. On the other hand, people who grew up in a culture where drinking is a frequent pastime will have no issue with it (and may even be surprised if you don't participate).
The division is not even a matter of what country the person is from, because even within a given country there is a spectrum of attitudes which varies by what social circle a person interacts with. With the diversity of backgrounds you get in academia, any specific answer you get here is likely to be incorrect.
As Tom Au suggests, your best bet is to do what others do. Especially convenient is if there is someone else of similar status to you, then you know whatever they do is very likely not improper for you.
If you are really unsure (or if you are the only junior member, or if you are new...), you can make a mental list of all the people present who you would not wish to embarrass yourself to. Keep an eye on how much they drink, and make sure to drink slightly less than whichever of these persons drinks the least. It's quite unlikely that they will disapprove of something they themselves do. Of course, if one of them happens to not drink anything at all, that means you shouldn't also, but on the flip side, in that case it's probably safer not to drink in the first place until you have a better idea of what everyone's attitude is.
Contrary to what others said, I doubt anyone will take issue if you drink too little. As I said, it is common to have people from very different backgrounds and cultures in academia, some of which do not drink at all. It is generally considered impolite to make assumptions on such things, so few would risk seeming insensitive by encouraging someone they don't know well to drink. The exception is if you know the other people well, or if you both come from very similar backgrounds so you know with certainty what your attitudes would be. But in that case, you can probably decide better yourself what is appropriate and what is not.

If the senior people are drinking too, there's no question that it's appropriate for you to. If you're at an event where drinks are provided, but the senior people aren't drinking then it should be fine for you to have a little to drink, unless you believe that they disapprove of drinking. And being on a plane is an event where drinks are provided, for the context of this answer. :-)

not quite true. I've worked in companies where some facilities were implicitly for senior management only, nobody else was supposed to go there without an explicit invitation. And that included the drinks cabinet at all-staff meetings, the pool table, and any facilities on the floor housing the boardroom (despite there being no locks or signs anywhere explicitly stating so, we were not supposed to be there without very good reason)...

@jwenting This is [academia.se], not [workplace.se]. I have never heard of anything like the situation you describe occurring in academia. There are plenty of events where only people of a certain status are invited. However, everybody who is invited to any particular event is treated equally.

It is in situations like this where a shandy/rattler/spritzer comes into it's own. You're still having a drink, but it's a sociably acceptable way to water it down. It saves you from having to turn down a drink, and makes it very unlikely you'll get too drunk.
Mostly though, you seem to be feeling forced into one situation or another. I would wager that asserting your own opinion as to what is acceptable for yourself will get you more respect in the long term.

Isn't part of the point of working in Academia to forward the thinking of the age and challenge predetermined constructs? Whilst the question relates to being judged by others would it not also be appropriate to question the regard for those who would judge, and thus the value of regard for their judgement? To determine your own opinion to be higher than that of another is in my mind not a good methodology starting point unless you have an evidence base to back it up, and therefore should be challenged as a premise. To not question this leads to a lack of development in the area of society most in charge of development, with a hierarchy system of regard no better than that of the private corporation.
And if you can say all that without slurring any of it you've managed to avoid drinking too much!
In my mind it's a case of "do what you like". If what you like is to fit in, then fit in. Just don't be surprised if some people realise that this is what you did. I would however stress against the getting very drunk, or indeed being one of the heavier/faster drinkers, unless you don't mind the labelling that comes with this.

Look around you. Observe the 25%ile pace of drinking. Do that. If everybody is drinking the same thing, you as well. If there’s a mixture (some beer, some wine, some sherry, etc), drink something that isn’t conceptually far from the observed distribution.
You fit in, are part of the team, but not in any way inappropriate.

Why do you advocate drinking considerably slower than the median rate? Why do you feel that somebody should drink something they might dislike just because everybody else is drinking it? Academia is, in my experience, very tolerant of insignificant personal differences: nobody will care if you drink beer while everyone else is drinking wine or vice-versa; probably nobody will care if you drink a little beer or wine while everyone else is drinking orange juice.

When people serve something and you turn it down, you make them feel bad. So unless your mood turns foul or you become aggressive when drinking beer or wine, you should join the fun. Also, Academic people get very buried in their work, and spare time and work hours blend together. If you can't relax and enjoy the good things in life with your fellows, you risk having a rocky road and face alienation from your fellows.

I doubt I'll change anyone's mind about this, but please keep in mind that some people cannot drink (due to health reasons, religious reasons, etc.), and not everyone feels like telling their life story after they turn down a drink(!).

well, those reasons for not drinking is not really the topic of this post as I see it. But english isnt my first language, so I could be wrong.

@MichaelNielsen it is true that the reasons are not the topic, but in my academic environment, such people are very common. We have a few people who don't drink for religious reasons, people from some specific backgrounds that simply drink very little to none, and one or two people who strongly dislike the taste of alcohol. Majority of the people drink (quite a bit, I'm in France) but not drinking is common enough that even when offering, people usually ask something like "would you like some wine, or perhaps some juice?", and they are certainly not offended by not drinking.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How cite sources of 100-years-old analytical technique in a theory section?
In my master’s thesis in inorganic characterization, I have a theory chapter about X-ray (powder) diffraction. This technique is almost 100 years old, and have been described in a vast number of books, articles, and web-pages.
I could easily take any book about X-ray diffraction and just cite that book, but I don’t want to keep citing the same book every four sentences for basic knowledge. So I was thinking that something like the following might be suited:

The principles of X-ray diffraction are described in a number of books [1-4], articles [5-9], and web-pages [10-13]. The theory presented in this section is just a brief summary of what one might encounter in published works, such as those cited above.

This way I give some sources of the principles of X-ray diffraction, and I explain that what I present could be found in the cited sources. Thus, I don’t need to cite anything in-text, and the reading is easier.
Is this approach acceptable?

The real question is whether you need to cite anything at all.  In your field, if this information is considered undergraduate-level material that every practitioner should be familiar with, then you can simply assume that all readers will be able to reference their favorite textbook if they care, and launch right into the relevant review.
If you are speaking to an audience that may not be so familiar, however, you definitely do need to cite.  You don't need to put in lots of citations, however: you can simply say that this is well-established information and give one citation to a good textbook:

The principles of X-ray diffraction are well-known (see, e.g., [textbook]).

For example, when I am writing to a computer science audience and need to say something about the NP-completeness of constraint satisfaction, I would probably not include a citation, since this is such a foundational concept to the field at this point.  When I write to a biology audience about the same problem, however, I explicitly note that these are long-established facts and include citations to basic textbooks.

Good answer. I'd recommend going for a more specialized book than a textbook, though. And I'd have a chat with fellow students/supervisors/look at recent theses what the local culture says about the level of basics that should be discussed.

X-ray diffraction is such a common technique that you do not need to cite sources. At most I would cite a single review of the technique once at the beginning of your chapter. If you want to give a historical perspective, you could either cite a historically-oriented review of the technique, or mention+cite important discoveries made with the technique (e.g. the DNA double helix).


text:
Should I resubmit a rejected paper to the same journal?
Suppose you submit a paper and it is rejected with no suggestion of resubmission, but there is substantial feedback. Do you fix up the paper, based on the feedback and resubmit? Or fix it up and submit to another journal? What heuristic do people use, if any? Or is every case different?
I had a bad experience a few years ago. Briefly: Paper rejected after 1 yr. Fixed it up, resubmitted. Major revision decision after 6 months. Fixed up, resubmitted. Rejected again after another 6 months. This literally went on for years, and was quite, quite horrible. The original draft was in pretty bad shape, in hindsight, which partly explains it, and I'm more experienced now. I guess it was one of those character-building experiences.
However, I'm wondering if on balance, if the journal doesn't want it, whether it is better to cut your losses and move on?
For the record, I'm leaning in the direction of submission to another journal if initially rejected without the suggestion of resubmission. If the journal suggests resubmission, I suppose it is a more ambiguous situation.

Major revision (specially in good journals) means soft rejection. That is somehow good idea but we won't publish it. It is better to polish the paper again and submit it somewhere else.

I don't agree that major revision means soft rejection.  Not in my field (atmospheric science), at least.

@seteropere Also (strongly) disagree on Major revision as soft rejection, and agree with @ dgraziotin and @ gerrit. In ecology (especially in good journals), major revision is usually fairy good news, and the paper is likely to be published if you fix the issues raised in the reviews. Even Rejection with the possibility of resubmission is sometimes used instead of major revision (possibly to shorten the apparent time between initial submission & accept?)

I think it would be very much worth talking to the editor or editor-in-chief of the journal, explaining the situation, the previous feedback and the changes you've made/plan to make. If they are less than enthusiastic, then you could quickly save yourself another two years of pain!

@badroit If you are referring to the episode referenced in the question, this happened years ago. And I did talk to the editor about it, but he presumably didn't care. He knew the situation. Apparently he didn't see a problem with taking 6 months to issue a rejection, multiple times.

Echoing others here, major revision isn't soft rejection in Epidemiology/Public Health - it's by far the most common outcome of my submissions.

Some journals do not allow you to submit the same paper again when they have rejected it before. If you do anyway, and someone notices it, it will be rejected again, and this someone is probably going to remember your name. Thus, if there is such a policy, don't try to do it, even if the revised manuscript is perfect.

It depends on the reason for rejection.
If a paper is rejected because it's off-topic, it's not really interesting, it's not really new, etc.: then perhaps you were too ambitious.  A paper may be perfectly written and the science may be very decent, but still rejected from Nature, because its impact is not really large enough.
However, if a paper is rejected with a motivation like this topic would fit our journal, but some major aspects are missing in the study, and they are so grave that we choose to reject, then you can start over and submit a fixed study.  In fact, I have the impression that some journals that have fixed deadlines for revisions, will reject if it is deemed unrealistic to submit the revision in time.  Otherwise, there could be a huge difference between the submission date and the publication date, and that isn't beneficial to anybody.

What is a fixed study?

@Philosopherofscience A study where problems pointed out by reviewers are fixed.

To some extent you answered your own question, every case is different. There is nothing wrong with resubmitting to the same journal, although the paper has been rejected without encouragement to resubmit after revisions. Earlier, such lack of encouragement could be taken as a hint that they do not want to see the paper again, and maybe that will still be the case, but more likely the workload is at such a level that the editors leaves such choices to the author. You are of course free to submit to another journal.
The danger to submit to the same journal is that you may end up with the same editor and the same reviewers. That may not necessarily be all bad but with a new journal you will likely have a fresh look at your paper. You will of course at submission tell the editor that the paper has been reviewed in the earlier journal and was rejected, and also detail what you have done to improve the paper. It would not hurt if you also provide some (good) motivation why you chose the new journal for resubmission. As an editor it is always of interest to know why you made the choice so that one can approach the paper from that perspective.
The trick is to try to figure out if which journal is the appropriate one and there certainly can be strategies in submitting papers. It is not uncommon to try for a prestigious journal with material that has a chance and then resubmit to a more ordinary journal if the first attempt fails. It is always good to have such thoughts in mind when submitting material.
I do not easily give up on papers, some may of course be lost causes for a variety of reasons but any study done and written up properly that presents new non-trivial results should be possible to publish. Easier said than done, however.

Is mentioning an earlier rejection in a new submission required? I'm not aware of this, nor have I ever seen it mentioned in a journal submission process.

It is not a law and it is probably not written in the brief versions of submission instructions but it is fair to provide such information and in some cases necessary. In, for example, ScholarOne Manuscripts, an electronic submission system for journals such a question is part of the default set-up.

I just reread this answer. This sentence seems to be missing a conclusion. "I do not easily give up on papers, some may of course be lost causes for a variety of reasons but any study done and written up properly that presents new non-trivial results." A clarification would be appreciated. Thanks.

A few other details would make it easier to answer your question. Did the paper receive a desk rejection or was it sent for peer review? What was the reason for rejection mentioned in the decision letter?
In case the paper received a desk rejection, it would not be advisable to submit to the same journal, as the editor has probably not seen much value in your paper.
If your paper has gone through peer review, you can consider submitting an extensively revised version of the paper to the same journal, provided the rejection is not due to a mismatch with the journal's scope.
In your place I would make the changes suggested in the feedback and send the paper to another journal. However, if you are really keen on the same journal, you could send a pre-submission inquiry to the editor mentioning the changes you have made and asking if he would be interested in having another look at the paper.

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


text:
Grant fraud, should I bust my PhD advisor?
tl;dr: Should I report this large grant fraud, and what consequences could it have for me?
For obvious reasons, I will try to maintain some anonymity here.
So I defended my thesis. Which was funded through a government grant.
In order to obtain this type of grant, a professor needs to cooperate with several other research organizations and privately-owned industries. Then it is required for some people to exchange between these places for extended periods of time. Relocate to a different place, live and work there.
So my industrious professor submitted all the required paperwork and received enough money to support multiple PhD students, post-docs and senior professors. However, almost none of them actually did any exchange. Instead, everyone just stayed at their home institutions.
Of course, I had no idea that the grant money was being mishandled until a monitoring meeting with the grant authorities that took place a long time after I started. All the other PhD students had no idea what was going on as well. We ended up making ridiculous statements about our accommodation, work hours, health insurance as the senior professors convinced us to lie about fictitious exchanges taking place.
The whole scheme is based on deliberate misinformation about people working at places they have never seen in their lives. I suspect a ton of papers and documents had been forged and submitted as evidence. The government thinks it's a research project with cooperation among multiple institutions. The only time we see each other is at set-up (pretended) conferences.
Naturally, all the documentation is kept secret, but a quick Google search would reveal that one can't simultaneously work at place x, and give lectures at place y, while x and y are hours of travel away. But again the people who control the grant money only check the paperwork they are provided. Is there a bogus employment contract in my name? I don't know but I have reasons to believe so.
Should I report this as a fraud?
There is an anti-fraud unit which should deal with it. This could, however, backfire in so many unimaginable ways. Forgery is rather a serious offense: a few PhD students and post-docs could end up being deported. More money is being awarded each year which could go to other researchers that are at least honest about what they spend it on. A funded PhD position is still available at my university, so more unsuspecting students will be involved.
I don't even know how I should approach this problem myself. It is an ethical dilemma as to whether I should support my supervisors. The procedure is definitely illegal, but the consequences could vary from not receiving future funding from the same source, to grant recovery (many millions of an unspecified currency) or even criminal charges. I can only speculate on what documents have been forged in the process, employment contracts, visa documents etc. A large number of involved researchers don't even live on the same continent, and that is where most of the money might go to. It is also very personal. Apart from being fooled with many false promises into writing a PhD, I did not sign up for, nor intended to, lie about living in a place I have never been to.

It's not clear what kind of answer you're looking for, since nobody can make the decision for you ("Should I?"). Can you [edit] your post to clarify your question? For example, are you asking if you have an ethical responsibility to report? What the consequences of reporting are likely to be? Something else?

Should I is something you can answer, How can I, is something people might be able to guide you on.  Probably the funding agency has an email address, if you are really adamant about telling them.

So you were convinced to lie to government officials in order to complete a PhD which you regard as being intellectually worthless and left you struggling to find an entry-level job?  What a sad story.

Yes It is a sad story, just like many PhDs are. In fact there are other students on the same wagon.

Be the change you want to see in the world. If you don't speak out about it, these practices will simply continue until someone else is brave enough to do something about it. Sure, it's risky business for you, but it will always be for whoever thinks about doing it. If you don't speak out, essentially you're a co-conspirator.

I don't want to burn all the bridges. Having given how low reputation my department already has, if it looses the primary source of income the university could close it down.

Since it seems that you yourself may have contributed to the fraud by lying to the grant authorities, I would think you really ought to consult a lawyer.  It sounds like there are lots of people who know about this, and if one of them decides to blow the whistle before you do, you could have some serious problems.

You do understand that if the grant is revoked, you will have to return all the  money you received from this grant (as everyone else). Then you will see if you are still loan-free to repay all that. Also, you will have to face the same law  consequences, since you also lied, provided false written documents and conspired to the fraud as everyone. Strong ethics do not come for free

"We ended up making ridiculous statements about our accommodation..." and whose idea was that?  Did your supervisor directly say 'you need to lie about what you have been doing because I am stealing money from these people'?  As Nate and Alexandros point out, there are some other issues you may have to deal with, and some people playing dumb to what students said or thought were lies might not be good for you.

You need to consult a lawyer. As @Alexandros pointed out - you will very likely be considered a part of the fraud. Apart from having to return the money you may also face criminal charges - in my country, getting over a few hundred $ illegally brings you automatically to court. You may want to check your country's whistleblower/cooperating defendant protection laws, but those (if existent) usually do not provide any strict protection - court will have to decide whether you will face charges. OTOH, if the scheme is revealed, you will be in much worse situation than if you had spoken.

@rantingPhDstudent: "I don't want to burn all the bridges." - Fully understandable why you would want to avoid that. "(...) if [the department] looses the primary source of income the university could close it down." - Actually, not quite understandable why you would specifically want to avoid this outcome. The ethical issues mentioned by others left aside, it is clear you would want to reduce the possible fallout, but by explicitly stating that the department could be closed down to be the issue, it sounds like you feel an inherent legitimacy to the department's existence, as well as ...

... some kind of a personal attachment (it's "your" department, "you" must not harm it). If this is actually the case, I suggest you reconsider this "team spirit" mentality. You are responsible for your decisions, not your department. Conversely, "rescuing" your department cannot absolve you from unwise decisions that you might make to achieve that goal.

I removed some (imho unnecessary) parts of your question, feel free to restore the original question if you disagree.

Some of these comments and answers seem unrealistically pessimistic to me. Yes, this sounds like a big grant fraud. Yes, shit is likely going to hit the fan at some point. Yes, both the department and the advisor (as well as the other senior professors) are likely in trouble then. No, the probability that the OP will have to pay back money is very, very small. No, even if this becomes a legal fraud case, I would very much doubt that any serious charges are raised against the PhD students (unless the department somehow manages to throw them under the bus, which is not very realistic).

Let me put it differently: when a fraudulent company gets busted, the people that get charged are the ones that sign the contracts and/or who have a formal responsibility (e.g., the official financial controller). Nobody raises charges against the interns and entry-level staff, even though the probably also knew about (parts of) the machinations. That being said, getting a lawyer is still probably a good idea.

@xLeitix I agree that the responsibility might in the end not be with the OP, but the case is different from the company fraud scenario as it can easily be argued that OP had personal profit from the fraud. Also in fraudulent companies, the employees typically claim to have acted in good faith or under threats. The difference is subtle and in the end the decision will probably lie with court (if there is any). And these subtleties are exactly why you need a professional lawyer.

which country/jurisdiction are you in?

My advice- to Ph.D. students, generally- is to build or find a time machine, go back before you started the Ph.D. program, and then... don't. So far, that strategy has a 100% success rate.

While not as severe as your case I omitted a year of university when I transferred into the college I graduated from. I reported the omission about a year in and was called in front of a disciplinary committee. They actually respected that I tried to remedy my mistake and let me off with a warning. I am very happy I came forward and can't imagine still having that inconsistency on my record. It will greatly benefit you morally and professionally to come forward. These things can, and have, come back to haunt people many years down the road.

@MartinČerný I agree with xLeitix. Just like in fraudulent companies the OP could claim good faith (advisor: this is how its done in academia) or threat, too (advisor: do it or I'll fire you and make sure you never land a position in my field of academia). Statements implying that "we used a questionable accounting trick to be able to buy a new device we really needed for research" is ok-ish, make good faith all the more plausible. And if the presumably well connected advisor gets out of this, blacking his name to all his colleagues is a very real threat too, if OP wants to stay in academia.

This should be in the next weekend reads on Retractionwatch.

I would guess that in most European countries it is unlikely that the OP has to personally pay back any money. It is more likely that his/her PhD title is revoked, as it was granted as part of a fraudulent scheme.

@DannyRuijters: I am not sure why the revocation of the PhD title is so frequently brought up here. The major part of the described scheme seems to be about manipulating the organisational framework. While the scientific results are not necessarily of a very high quality, the one misdeed that is not implied to have happened here is the manipulation or faking of scientific results. As such, it would seem rather odd to acknowledge that the OP wilfully helped cover up the funding fraud for a while and not act on it, but instead deny the scientific merit the work might still have after all.

@O.R.Mapper: I personally don't want to revoke anybody's title. I have noticed, however, that in academic fraud investigations often the question is raised whether any degrees have been granted without being deserved. Since in most European countries the PhD student is not the direct recipient of the grant, it is unlikely that the OP would need to pay anything back in Europe.

"if one of them decides to blow the whistle before you do, you could have some serious problems"
This seems like a classical Prisoner's dilemma.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_dilemma

@rantingPhDstudent want a really good advice? DO NOT POST about your own CRIMES on the web. To delete this question right now (I think its already to late) is your best bet. Good luck in jail.

@MatasVaitkevicius Now we are already talking about jail time :) ? You guys have a vivid phantasy.

@xLeitix From the question, it sounds like the OP might have personally lied to government grant officers. While it was under the direction of professors, that goes beyond just knowing about fraud and not saying anything; I don't know what country the OP is in, but in the US they could well be facing charges if they personally lied to government grant officials.

@O.R.Mapper I think that the OP's concern for the department has less to do with bringing down those responsible for this, but for all of the other Graduate Students who are not a party to this and will lose years of time and work if the Department is shuttered. One only needs to look at some of the financial scandals of the past 25 years to see the knock on ramifications for the misdeeds of the few.

You should most certainly report them - it is ethically, morally, and professionally correct.  Remember that if this effects your professional or personal life in any way you will be able to sue the university, its board, the professors involved and possibly even the government.  Personally speaking, I would see you as an honest person - the kind of person I think companies will want.

You are creating a false dichotomy: get your damn PhD awarded first and start your new job before you contemplate doing any of this. It's near-impossible to retract a PhD after it's been awarded, but it's very easy to retaliate against a candidate beforehand. Get your priorities straight. The fraud will likely be discovered someday, even if you don't intervene. Do not be consumed by having been fooled by false promises, it happens to many of us, and guess what? industry is just like that, except presumably more zeros after the numbers.

TLDR: You need a lawyer.

I think, ethically, speaking out is the right thing. Falsifying grants is despicable and has a very negative impact on science in general. It has happened to me multiple times that when I say in a pub that I am in science and that I got a grant people say things like "All those grants are just frauds to get money from the government/EU". I don't think I need to explain why this kind of perception hurts on both personal and systemic level.
Regarding your own well being, things are much more difficult. The fact is that you have willingly participated in a non-trivial fraud for a prolonged period of time. Speaking out will not erase this neither ethically nor legally.
You need to consult a lawyer (not an Internet law advice, a real lawyer). As pointed out in the comments - you may easily be considered a part of the fraud. You may want to check your country's whistleblower/cooperating defendant protection laws, but those (if existent) usually do not provide any strict protection - court will have to decide whether you will face charges. OTOH, if the scheme is revealed later without your involvement, you will be in much worse situation than if you had spoken.
You may also claim to have acted in good faith or under serious threat (losing employment). Once again, a lawyer should be able to tell you to what extent this may protect you under the relevant jurisdiction, given the specific circumstances (there is no simple general rule).
Be aware, that you are in trouble. I don't think there are so many grants of this kind and much fewer of them are being cheated like the one you speak about. There is a non-negligible chance that someone overseeing the project reads this post and may consider checking whether this isn't "his" project. Some other participant of the grant may read this as well and consider speaking out himself to get into a better situation. And as this sounds like a big and ongoing fraud, it may easily burst on its own - once people get too much used to bending rules they usually do not know when to stop.
This is not a "we used a questionable accounting trick to be able to buy a new device we really needed for research" kind of problem, there is no good intent, neither was the money used in the spirit of the grant.
EDIT: One more bad scenario in response to some of the comments. Let's suppose the fraud is exposed. Even if the funding agency does not initiate a criminal investigation and even if they cannot directly claim money from you (as your contract is probably with the uni) you still have trouble. Since the uni will likely have to return a large sum of money, they can file civil suit against the people involved in the fraud seeking financial compensation for the loss. As you have made false statements about accommodation and other stuff, this can easily include you.
EDIT 2: I would like to highlight a good point made in AndrejaKo's answer: If the corruption is sufficiently deep in the system, it might not be actually possible to bust your advisor (read the answer for detailed reasoning).

An important thing to add to this answer, I think, is that if you decide not to report the fraudulent activity now but that it somehow does get discovered in the future the consequences for you could end up being even more negative than they are now.  Sorry to add more complexity to the consideration.

How did you get "willingly"? As I understand the OP, he has only learned of the misuse "a long time after he started": "Of course I had no idea that the grant money is being mishandled". I don't really think that the OP is in any very concrete danger of being tagged as an accessory to this fraud.

@xLeitix Once you make a statement which you now is false, to gain something (continued grant funding in this case) you are willingly commiting fraud, unless you prove you had no other option - which does not seem to be the case. It would be hard to argue (legally) that being forced to quit a PhD is such a dire consequence. I am referring to this part: "We ended up making ridiculous statements about our accommodation, work hours, health insurance"

@MartinČerný. To add to your arguments, the OP could resign anytime from the grant without leaving his PhD. The PhD is between him and the host institution and he could just continue without receiving funding.

This is not a "we used a questionable accounting trick to be able to buy a new device we really needed for research" kind of problem, there is no good intent, neither was the money used in the spirit of the grant.
Do we know this? Maybe the research was actually being done, just without people moving around. It's certainly safer for the OP to report, but I don't know that we have enough information to say if it's ethically necessary.

@rantingPhDstudent I agree with the suggestion to consult legal counsel.  In addition, on your own, I'd suggest carefully establishing a timeline: when you joined the project, when you suspected fraud, when you confirmed it, when you communicated with the grant monitor, etc. Collect any and all documentation that you have that pertains to you and the grant and keep a copy for yourself; if the evidence is "lost", it's your word against theirs. You may want to review your uni's policies/structure to see if there is a Vice-Chancellor of Res. / Provost who would rep the uni in this matter, IMHO.

@Alexandros We still don't know EU or US, but from my German POV continuing the PhD without the advisor or the funding is unrealistic. PhDs are usually bound to their advisor from day one and switching to a different advisor usually means starting over. College loans aren't as established here, especially not for PhD. Moreover, his visa might depend on having a job (PhD counts as a job because it usually is). So yes he could resign any time but what might that mean for him? He might be able to plead that he had a relationship of dependence on the advisor, which might get him a lighter charge.

@xLeitix in many jurisdictions lying to an auditor is, by itself, a crime. There is no doubt that the OP did that. That was the moment when they became implicated in the fraud. (And saying "i'd lose my PhD if I didn't participate" probably does not come close to meeting the legal standard of "forced to participate").

Here is one thing that doesn't quite make sense. As far as I have seen, grant money generally doesn't go directly to the researcher that has applied for it. It usually goes into a research trust that the University controls and payout only occurs when proper documentation is produced. So signed timesheets, plane tickets, expense reports with receipts, purchase orders, leases if you are living in funded housing have to be provided before a reimbursement is made. It usually isn't a PI being handed a bag of cash. Where is the oversight at the institutional level at this university?

Since the question is intentionally vague, I think there's one more angle that should be considered in the general case and that everyone missed: Can I actually bust my PhD adviser?
Let's be honest: Such deep level of cover-ups shows that entire operation is being conducted in a society that allows corruption, so it would be a bit naive to think it's only localized to academia.
Assuming you actually have sufficient evidence to incriminate the whole gang, can you be sure that someone is going to act on those evidence?   Are you sure that none of the implicated professors have a colleague from law school who just happens to be best friends with the prosecutor to whom your case gets assigned to? Or the judge? Can you be 100% sure that your case won't spend next XX years untouched at the bottom of the stack of the cases that need to be solved?
If the behavior you're describing is being tolerated by such large number of people, can you be 100% sure that there's absolutely no government backing in it? Are you sure that people controlling the grant money are as incompetent/naive as they look and are not in fact somehow taking a percentage of the grant money for themselves? We'll give you 100 million, but you'll give me 1 million!
To put is simply, I suspect that there could be a very serious danger that you could report this to the authorities, exposing yourself in that way and burning all bridges with your research community, and at the same time have authorities do absolutely nothing about it, other than perhaps prosecuting you personally for your contribution to the plot. Such things can be common in societies with large levels of systematic corruption and in that case, by reporting the plot, you'd only exile yourself from academia. It could quite easily happen that in such case you may need to leave your country and start looking for work elsewhere.
Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be rocking the boat, I'm just trying to focus a little bit on the consequences part of the question. Make sure that you have a plan in place in case your attempt to expose the plot fails.
Many people recommended that you speak to a lawyer. Instead, I'll say: Try to find a good lawyer that specializes in corruption cases and can explain to you how exactly is it realistic for you to expose people and where you should report the fraud if it is in fact feasible to report it. Then find another lawyer with same qualifications and speak to him as well! Keep in mind that in busting your adviser, you'll be making a whole bunch of enemies, many of them of high rank, quite possibly for life. People say: "The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine." Even in the case that the rest of your society is not as corrupt as I fear it to be, what are you going to do while the case is being processed, which can easily take many years? Would you be able to eat and drink your honesty?
So once again, before you actually do anything, make sure you have plans in place so you are safe if it all backfires.

I like this answer because let's face it: the supervising governmental organization obviously isn't looking too closely at what's going on if this is as easy to suss out as you seem to state.  That doesn't mean you don't have some ethical obligations here, but I dunno. I've seen a few of these deals where it's like "It would be nice but in reality..." and so everyone settles for less and maybe there are some facts here that you don't have access to.  But yeah, once you agreed to falsify the documents -- professorial encouragement or no -- you became involved just as much as anyone else.

(And before anyone jumps down my throat for saying that, just take a look at the state of government procurement in the US.  These kinds of things are happening at all levels and if you think academia is immune I've got some beachfront property in western Pennsylvania I'd like you to take a look at.  I'm not saying I support or condone this kind of thing, but it happens.  A lot.)

@DaveKaye: Would that be in Erie county?

I like this answer because it sheds some light on an important aspect, i.e., the country that OP is doing their research. I can think of many countries that are popular destination for PhD students and aforementioned case could result in completely different verdict in each of these countries.

In this kind of cases, the best way is to use politics against it. Chances are that, along the chain, there are strata of friends and foes that can help you. I have seen this play out at university level, not at justice level, though.

Warning: Harsh answer following
Let me state some facts:

You probably took a PhD you did not deserve ("worthless" was your original wording) to satisfy the grant requirements
You were paid unusually lots of money for a PhD student, probably without having to do TAs but working exclusively on the grant aka your research
(those type of grants offer very high paychecks even for the PhD students, since they also have money for relocation, living expenses etc...). In EU, PhD students on such projects are paid as much as €2700 - €3500 per month for as much as 3 years => you probably were paid >€100k.
You probably had a very big travel budget for conferences, with little administrative overhead (contrary to most PhD students who are on a very tight travel budget)
You put your signature on falsified documents, probably lied in person to your grant reviews, did not resign or returned the money you falsely took when you discovered the fraud.
Having received all that money and getting your PhD, you now have a guilty conscience and a change of heart.
You want to do the "ethical" thing but without voluntarily returning all the money you received from the grant.

Somehow, I cannot see you as a victim here.
As far as I am concerned, consulting a lawyer and voluntarily returning all the money you illegally received from the grant (after consulting your lawyer) are the only viable solutions if you want to come clean.

Even though I agree with your point, that doesn't answer the question. There is a proper approach to this.

Based on some of the comments on the question that suggest the unanswerable part of the question is the "Should I" perspective, while the answerable part of the question is the "Am I ethically obliged" perspective, I would argue this answer does a good job at laying down most (all?) of the known facts in a concise way sufficient to answer the answerable part of the question.

I agree with @O.R.Mapper that this answer lays a ground for the true answer. If you want to bust your advisor, you will need to bust yourself, too. It is very harsh as the warning says. To the OP, you were an adult when you signed up the PhD, right? Or, you were under 18 years age when you start PhD?

@yo' First of all, as a legal expert you should know that lawyers do not decide on legality but courts do. Second, if he was paid money for living abroad and he only stayed in his home country the OP committed the same fraud as anyone else did. In fact, his advisor might not even committed fraud, since a) he only supervised the students and b) he did not receive any money directly (his institution did) from the grant. So, it is mostly the administrative department that is in hot water and then the advisor responsible for the scientific part, which was done anyway.

The victim is obviously the taxpayer, as usual.

Another part that might determine OP 'role' in the fraud is "Of course I had no idea that the grant money is being mishandled until a monitoring meeting with the grant authorities that took place a long time after I started" .  Depending on what a long time is, as in, 3 months before defending PHD as a warp up to some funding, it could change responsibility

@user1938107 For EU research (3 years) programmes that fund PHD candidates, reviews happen typically every year. Also, the PHD student signs an individual contract that states the terms. Moreover, a  Google search on the grant, would clearly show the terms and conditions for eligibility. Playing damn as a PHD holder would not convince anyone.

@Alexandros I guess your last sentence would be a pretty damning statement in court.

@user1938107 Up to the point where the OP agreed to lie in the review meeting, ignorance was a defence ("They paid me a stipend to be a PhD student; I studied towards a PhD; nobody told me there were a bunch of conditions on the money"). After they lied to the review meeting, they were complicit in the fraud. It would require an unusual amount of curiosity for a PhD student to look up the terms under which the university had been awarded the grant. But everybody knows that lying is wrong.

@Alexandros: Are you aware that your answer basically amounts to "no, you should absolutely keep quiet because you'll be screwed if you speak up?" Your closing sentence suggests that you think you said something else.

@PhasmaFelis No, my answer is: You took a tons of undeserving money for delivering meaningful research due to your advisor's fraud but you delivered mediocre-to-bad results and got a probably undeserving PhD. So, stop playing the victim and blaming others for your shortcomings.

From an ethical point of view, the best thing to do is to report the fraudulent behavior. As to the question of whether "[you] should support [your] supervisors back" the answer is no. There is no ethical obligation for you to keep fraudulent behavior secret to protect your previous bosses. In general the ethical code in academia differs from the one in organized crime (with some exceptions).
It sounds like you think revealing what you know might result in the obliteration of an entire department and several (a priori honest) people loosing their job. This is not going to make you popular among these people. But it's not a sufficient reason, again strictly ethically speaking, not to report it. They use ill-acquired money, either knowingly or not, and this money should go to someone else.
From your point of view,  the situation is risky of course and it's a bit late to report it, the ideal moment would have been when you were first asked to falsify reports of your expenses and actual location. If you decide to report, seek professional legal support.
But don't be too optimistic about the results of any investigation that might follow. In the majority of countries, it's very rare that anything is being done about people embezzling public money in academic or other government environments. If anything, the private companies involved might retract to prevent further damage.

I have a few concerns with your post:

it is required for some people to exchange between these places for extended periods of time. Relocate to a different place, live and work there.

How many exactly is "some"?

However almost none of them actually did any exchange. Instead everyone just stayed at their home institutions.

Wait, "almost none" implies that it was not everyone that stayed at their institutions. That is, some people did make the exchange.
The point being: could it be possible that, at least at this point in what you've told us, the PI has fulfilled the obligations to the grant?
Now, though, here's a critical point:

We ended up making ridiculous statements about our accommodation, work hours, health insurance as the senior professors convinced us to lie about fictitious exchanges taking place.

When you write "ridiculous" you mean all of those statements were total lies, on the part of every student? And that multiple professors convinced every student to blatantly lie about key features of their contracts? And no one has balked or come forward about it publicly?
Doesn't that strike you as hard to believe?
My other concern is this:

The government thinks it's a research project with cooperation among multiple institutions. The only time we see each other is at set-up (pretended) conferences.

But in my experience, cooperation among multiple institutions often does not entail physically transplanting researchers. Are you sure you understand the exact requirements of the grant? That having a few key researchers exchange and occasionally meeting at conferences (what do you mean by "pretended"? Do they meet or do they not?) doesn't fulfill the grant?
My overall point is: you had better be perfectly sure you know exactly what is permitted under the grant and what is not before you start accusing anyone of misdeeds.

The concerns you have are very reasonable. But in total the number of fictional exchanges would add up to over a decade of claimed exchange time. Transplanting researchers is unfortunately the main point of this grant. I guess this somehow explains how the whole thing gets by unnoticed. No one expects researchers to move around, or make total lies about their whereabouts.

@rantingPhDstudent There is an answer that does not seem to have been provided yet, that while is kind of a cop out, at least gets you started on a better path and would be viewed as a normal first step in situations like this. Most Universities have Internal or Research Review committees that are likely run as an adjunct to the Provost's office or the office of the President. Approach them. It keeps everything within the institution and allows people with the authority to obtain the facts to determine what has gone on and what the course of action should be. Even if this grant...

... is a substantial sum of money, it is likely pocket change to the money that could be lost by the entire institution should they be sanctioned from applying for any grants. They will investigate and they will make the decision that is in the best interest of the institution. It is possible that they will find that while the spirit of the grant may have not been met, the contractual obligations have been met. In that case it goes no further. If not, then not opening disciplinary reviews and reports jeopardizes there existence as a research institution, and they will likely report...

to the agency funding the grant.

Counterpoint to the "maybe it was actually okay" aspect of the above, though, is this from the question: "...as the senior professors convinced us to lie about fictitious exchanges taking place..." If it was okay, senior professors wouldn't be convincing PhD students to lie.

@AMR That's a really important point that I feel should probably be an answer: if you can keep it in the institution, go through the Correct Channels, etc, then you are far less likely to end up with the problems that AnrejaKo outlines, AND it becomes "someone else's problem" - you've done your bit, you've reported it, and it's the institution's problem to straighten itself out.

@DewiMorgan. Thank you. As it is a protected question, I am locked out, though I would have provided it as answer had I not been. I am not saying that it is ideal, as we saw what happened with Penn State when going through proper channels led to a massive coverup and more victims, but in this case it is probably the way to go. In any organization, junior members only get to see so much and what you think is the reality may only be bits of the truth. It doesn't sound good, but it isn't the OPs responsibility to get to the bottom of the issue either, just to raise it for internal review.

You do not say what country you are from. Different countries have different legal systems. They also have different penalties.
If you were British or living in Britain, I'd suggest you start with the Citizens Advice Bureau. I'm pretty sure they do not ask for your full details. You could even give a false name. These organisations have contacts in all sorts of areas with experts who volunteer their specialist knowledge.
Contact any sources of help that are impartial and that will not be obliged to take action. Ask them beforehand what their policy is about reporting wrongdoing that they are told about. You can telephone a different branch from the one you intend to consult.
Think ten times or more  before you go anywhere near a body that does investigations and doles out punishments. Committees within educational establishments are not impartial. They will act in the best interests of themselves and the good name of the institution.  A few dead bodies of PhD scapegoats probably won't concern them as much as loss of a professor although it does happen.
Search your own conscience. If it's clear then go ahead. If it's not then pragmatism comes into play. Are you tough enough to take the consequences of your own actions? Can you make amends? Would that be a mitigating factor?
Finally be aware that whistle-blowing, even when done with the best will in the world and with a clear conscience can come back to bite you.
If you are outside Britain then I don't know what is available.
Good luck.

great advise. deserves more ups.

I think that you are right in saying that a university committee will look out for the best interests of the institution, but you have the wrong perspective on how they might approach this. If this whole question isn't blown out of proportion then it severely calls into question the University's ability for oversight, which depending on the jurisdiction could mean that the entire University gets sanctioned and that could be a huge sum of money if it affects there ability to obtain future grants because of questionable oversight in this situation.

The other answers already adequately point out your moral/ethical obligation to report this (from the sound of it quite large) fraud.
I just want to add that if you don't report this, and assuming you want to continue in Academia, it will probably hang over you for the rest of your career. You will be afraid of being busted for this for the rest of your life, and if you are, the consequences are likely to be far more severe than they would be now. This may be your last chance to come clean and make a fresh start.

Not so quite, especially if they don't plan to continue in Academia. The thesis has been published and it itself is not a false thesis, it only has questionable quality. And after some years (5 or 10 in most countries), financial frauds are statute-barred and you can't be persecuted in any way. Of  course, this does not solve the ethical/moral part of the problem.

@yo' Good point (I'll add it to my answer), although if they do continue in academia I don't think it will so easily go away. They may not be legally liable for anything, but depending on the specifics their academic reputation could still be ruined. Of course the OP him/herself knows best how likely that is...

Frankly, if they wrote a questionable-quality thesis, their chances in academia are very limited anyway.

I am not a lawyer, but I know enough to say that this matter is not Criminal or Civil, it is Contractual. In Contractual law, individuals who are involved in a breech of contract MAY be required to pay a fine, but only in very very rare circumstances. Typically it is the company, university or institution - the one that INITIATED the contract - that has to foot the payout. I'll repeat, because there are a few sensationalist posts above mine that seem to suggest otherwise - it is not criminal to breach a contract. When the contract is initiated on behalf a registered organisation/university, it is not even Civil. Extracting money for saying you will do X and instead you do Y is NOT a criminal offence unless common law is broken or significant harm to person or persons was brought about by deliberately (and with full knowledge of the consequences) breeching the contract. This is really only ever used when safety companies fail to provide due diligence to turn a quick profit and people die.
So any legal issues with the contract will be brought to your employer, not you personally. Your employer may then wish to seek damages against you for some of their costs because you did not report it to them sooner, but such a case is certain to fail. For one, even if they win, you probably have no money to pay them and can file for bankruptcy instantly. If they lose, they will have substantial court costs to pay. What probability do they have of winning? Slim to none. You can offer both ignorance AND/OR duress as credible defences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duress_in_English_law
So to answer your question, you should report it, and you should get a lawyer. Based on the information you have provided, you are not legally vulnerable. You are however extremely vulnerable academically. The university may revoke your PhD, and worse they might discredit your work, and make it very difficult for you to work in Science elsewhere. They do not need to provide any legal basis for doing either of these things, since PhDs are 'awarded' rather than earned. However, game theory would suggest that such a Pyrrhic victory is unlikely to be performed by a university of supposedly smart people. The effort spend in revoking your PhD is a no-win situation. But it really depends on the university when all is said and done.
Also, the only thing more impressive than a PhD is turning one down because the system failed you. Then go get a job at the grant-awarding body.
EDIT:
Due to "popular demand", and the fact that this post sits at a healthy -4, I am adding this edit.
In the above text I mention that I am not a lawyer. It goes without saying therefore that what i present isn't to be considered legal council. It is just an internet comment. However, it does contain actual legal information, which other commenters deemed incorrect, despite they themselves being frighteningly unclear on, if this went to trial, who would actually be suing whom.
They also request that I make it quite clear when I state "/Duress_in_English_Law", that I only refer to English law, because this was perhaps unclear.
In my defence, Common Law, which was developed in England and spread to the rest of the English-speaking world is actually rather... Common. Unsurprisingly, that is both why it is called Common Law, and why I referenced it in the first place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_legal_systems#Common_law
One of the nice things about Common Law is that many things, like the definition of basic legal terms such as "fraud", are very very similar wherever Common Law is applied. This is what makes having a conversation about law over the internet possible, without having to constantly qualify everything.
So I think it's fair to say that everything in this post is probably relevant to the OP, and isn't just some wishy-washy "do it because it's the right thing" or "if you don't do it you'll burn in hell" vote bait. I dont care for votes. What matters is that this guy DOES go to a lawyer, and DOES bring this matter to the attention of the grant-funding body. The chances of that happening is so very very much higher if he appreciates that he is not personally liable, as all the above nonesense brolawyer posts above suggest.

This depends on the jurisdiction, that the OP has not revealed. Also, I doubt institutions anywhere can revoke PhD degrees without, at least, a good explanation. They are official titles registered with the government of the country.

"He lied about compulsory meetings" is as good a reason as any. There is no accountability or legal trouble whatsoever to revoke a PhD - the courts always defer to the University's judgement. Case in point, I took my Uni to court because my Bachelor thesis was marked by two people: one gave me 20% the other 80%. The university averaged to 50%. No 3rd marker. I made a case that this was poor statistics at best. The judge favoured the Uni, saying however they calculate marks it must be OK. It took 2 years before i got into med school. The guy who gave me 20% later published my work as his own.

Fraud is both a civil wrong and a criminal wrong in most jurisdictions. You cannot say "oh it's merely a contractual breach so it cannot also be a criminal matter"—that isn't true.

Had to downvote this due to blanket statements such as "it is not criminal to breach a contract". There are countries where at least some forms of breaching a contract seem to be considered a criminal offence. And even without that, I doubt the statement "not Criminal or Civil, it is Contractual" makes sense for all countries - depending on the legislation, in case of a contractual disagreement, a civil lawsuit is the way to go.

This is dangerously wrong, in a number of ways. For one, "contractual" is a matter of civil law in many countries, such as the US. For another, knowingly and intentionally misrepresenting for purposes of gain when it causes material damage to another is generally criminal fraud (just for starters). Whether or not it is chosen to be prosecuted becomes a different question. In the US, for example, criminal fraud may even be a felony depending on the amount of damage. Do not rely on random statements like this answer where local law may differ or which may be entirely wrong: consult a lawyer.

@Calchas It isn't fraud. It is breach of contract. The requirements for fraud are not met for very much the same reasons that walking into a crime scene and not going straight to the cops is not murder. I cannot speak for the University, but regarding the question "what consequences could it have for me?", fraud is not on the table. Of course I do not know exactly how it would go down, but I suspect the University would EITHER be sued for breach of contract, OR be sued for fraud in the inducement, both of which protect the OP of fraud charges.

@taswyn and O.R. Mapper:
Your quite right, law does differ by country. My answer, which specifically mentions in the text British law, suggests this. I also gave an example of where being found guilty of Contractual law can lead to criminal or civil damages. I'm just amazed at these replies - it's like you both only read the first line and stopped reading immediately to comment...

"We ended up making ridiculous statements about our accommodation, work hours, health insurance as the senior professors convinced us to lie about fictitious exchanges taking place." To me that looks like making a false representation with intention of procuring gain. In England&Wales that satisfies s(2) of the Fraud Act 2006. My alternative charge as a prosecutor would be accessory to fraud from the date he received a pay cheque after learning about it. Alternatively it could be false accounting under the Theft Act.

The grant existed before the OP joined the university. For this to be fraud and not, what it really is, the violation of some collateral clauses in the contract regarding meetings and communication, the contract would have had to have been initiated with this intentionally in mind (by the Uni). Since the OP did not know anything was even amiss until AFTER he was well into his sub-contract with the university (unless he is on a stipend in which case there really is no legal link at all), there is no possible way that this is fraud. For a bunch of academics you really need to go back to school..

There is no fraud in contract law. The existence of fraud nullifies any contract. So either we accept that the STUDENT committed fraud, and its entirely a civil/criminal fraud case, or we accept that the STUDENT did not commit fraud, and this is entirely a contractual issue that the student did not perform their duties to the university by informing them of their own legal vulnerability. We differ on this. I dont think any more comments will resolve it either... :P

There is a big step between assessing if the grading is fair and revoking a title. The first is done according to university regulations, and they have some leeway to set them; the second has some requirement set by law.

It may not be fraud to breach a contract, but it is definitely fraud to lie about what you did and then obtain other government money later on based on these lies. Also, you can be sued for breaching the contract. Given the extent of the deception it is highly likely they would win the lawsuit and collect a large amount of money. Also, whichever university is employing the liar would likely take disciplinary action based on the lies (i.e. fire him). So while it's technically not fraud to lie, he will still be in serious trouble if it gets exposed.

"My answer, which specifically mentions in the text British law, suggests this." - No, it does not. It does contain a WP link related to British law, but nothing in your text says that is anything else than a limited example. Your whole text seems tos ay "world-wide, a breach of contract is not criminal or civil offence". Furthermore, I did not only read the first line, which is how I was able to reply to the fifth line. I suggest you thoroughly rewrite your answer in a way that clarifies you are specifically talking about the hypothetical (and possible) case British law is relevant here.

I applaud this alternative view. They state OP should get a lawyer then the very rationally explain why they don't think the OP is not going to be crucified. A big public trial and junior staff fried will cast a long shadow that all the grants they awarded were embezzled. They will want to shut it down as quietly as possible out of court. Supervisors will be exited and the uni will settle out of court. If OP gets crucified and gets a sympathetic write up in a newspaper it's a PR melt down for uni and grant body. If they shoot the OP they risk the ricochet hitting themselves between the eyes.

... the actual ultimate wronged party is the tax payer as their money was misappropriated. All other parties all have a vested interest in sweeping the affair under the carpet. They will want the OP to keep out of the limelight so will rattle the sword to encourage silence after the affair. Still this is all an observation of what a rational party will do and they might not act rationally. So get a lawyer.

@user3329564 - Comments are ephemeral and not intended for long discussion. This policy varies from site to site, see this meta question for more detail.

@user3329564 How, exactly, have you come to the conclusion that it wouldn't be fraud unless he lied before the beginning of the grant? The UK Fraud Act doesn't say anything of the sort. You are trying to say "if this falls under area of law X it cannot fall under area of law Y;" that is not actually how things work. Lying during a grant review in order to keep the grant can be both a civil breach of contract and a criminal fraud (and contract law is handled in civil cases in the UK, incidentally). The relevant case would be the Crown bringing a case against an individual.

@Davidmh (1st comment) as far as I know, in the US at least the government has no involvement with PhDs. They carry no official weight, are not registered with anybody except the granting institution, and revocation is entirely subject to that institution's rules.

The simple fact is that lying to government investigators (of any sort) is a crime in virtually every country and jurisdiction on earth.  Otherwise, individuals would not feel compelled to tell investigators the truth and there would be little point to their jobs and little reason for the government to even have investigations of any sort.

Yes. One day your signing bits of paper your boss hands you without fully appreciating what you are doing or why you're doing it, the next, total anarchy as government spins out of control and civilisation becomes just a  meaningless concept.

Not at all what I said.  But thanks for that strawman analysis...


text:
Is hiring a proofreader beneficial in the long term?
I am an Early Stage Researcher in a bigger project. I am non-native speaker of English and I find my level of English in my articles not satisfactory, especially when I consider that it is not just my reputation but also the reputation of the project.
I am thinking about hiring a proofreader for my future articles or other texts for publication.
My long term goal is to improve myself enough so I would not need a proofreader in the future. Does the possibility to see your corrected text help you improve your writing skill in the long term, or are English classes necessary?

Both things are not exclusive.

What improves most your English level (or help you maintain it if you have reached a certain level which you deem satisfactory) is usage of the language in all its forms: listening, speaking, reading, writing. This is especially easy in this age of globalization and technology: just keep reading texts of all kinds, listening to the radio, watching TV programs in original language (BBC news, series, …), professional podcasts or videocasts, etc.
In addition, comparing the proofread text of articles with your original version can help you better understand some of the mistakes you make, the invalid constructions you may use and
the shibboleths that give you away as a non-native speaker. However, unless you write (and get proofread) a large number of papers, this might not be enough to improve significantly.
Another possibility is to pay a teacher to actually review with you, on a regular basis, texts that you have written. Although it takes quite a bit of time, I believe it is one of the best ways to improve your written English, along with reading a lot.

So, the answer in NO(?). You believe that the ability to write an article with satisfactory level of English cannot be reached just by proofreading (see the mistakes you do) but also by practising listening, reading and so on. Am I right? Also because if you do not have to pay attention on trivial thinks you can focus more for example on, text structure?

@MasterPJ unless you do it very often, yes, I think reading corrections is not enough to improve your written English by much…

If you do decide to get a proofreader, make sure he understands the field you work in. Different fields have very different jargons, and a proofreader who is not proficient in your field will make things worse, not better. I have seen what a native English speaker (but non-psychologist) can do to an English psychology manuscript written by non-native speakers, and the results were not pretty...
It may actually be better to identify someone with strong English skills who may not be a native speaker but knows your field's specific jargon.

I would recommend both, for exactly the reasons you stated. Hire a proofreader to maintain a high quality current professional image, and take English language lessons to ensure that you can maintain a high quality future professional image (and to ensure you're not paying a proofreader for the rest of your career).