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Necessity of tenure for lifetime academic research
For context, I've been a postdoc in computer science for about 3 years.  I recently wrote a grant and was awarded a fellowship for 2 years.
I've heard from multiple sources that if I don't get a tenure-track position in the next two years it will become very difficult for me to have an academic research career.  But I don't need the kind of job security that allows me to get paid if I stop working—I just need some kind of agreement that I can keep my job while I'm productive.  This is pretty common in other jobs, so why in this case am I being told that it's basically tenure or nothing?

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/120046/93566

Do organisations like CSIRO or the research wings of certain companies in industry that hire full-time researchers count for this question?

What country? (Must add characters...

I don't need the kind of job security that allows me to get paid if I stop working What is wrong with having both job security and be productive?

People who get tenure generally don't need it. However the tenure track is traditionally at least the main career path for professors in college. This is changing but only a little. So to not start on it is to not progress in your career. Note that professors are more than teachers and researchers. They also share a ton of the administrative work in a college.

The reason is simply that possessing a tenure-track faculty position (and then obtaining tenure) is the primary performance indicator for long-term careers at most institutes where research is the primary responsibility.
There are some exceptions - some universities offer a research professor position: you pay your salary from grants you secure, and as long as you do that you can continue working there.
You can also work as a lab manager/research scientist in a university, which is a term contract that is extended based on merit.
Some private research institutes (Google/Facebook/Amazon etc.) offer research positions (that are highly competitive and well-paid), but there are also many other private research laboratories that offer a similar deal to what you describe (though in that case your research needs to be focused on what these institutes care about, and is not entirely up to you).
I'd also mention that tenured professors are still expected to be productive and get grants. Though it is more difficult to fire them, becoming completely inactive for no reason is probably not going to be good for your long-term career. In other words, to some extent tenure track faculty face the same agreement, especially when they're not tenured yet.

"The reason is simply that for most institutes that use research as a primary performance indicator, a tenure-track faculty position is it."--- I don't see how this answers the question. The OP didn't ask about how their performance is going to be evaluated? They asked about whether they can secure a research job to start with without being on a tenure track.

“Why am I being told that it’s basically tenure or nothing” - I’m directly answering this

Sorry, I still don't follow: why do you assume that the OP asked about the primary performance indicator of institutes? What do you mean by this sentence precisely?

in other words, why can't they have never ending postdocs even in institutes that have this kind of indicators for performance?

@Dilworth, I think that, in a lot of minds, if you have had a lot of post-docs but never a "real" position, your competence comes into question. Even when there are not specific rules limiting post docs. Also, in academia, there is a notion of moral-tenure. If  you are good enough to keep around more than seven years you should be good enough for tenure.

@Buffy, indeed I agree. This does not seem to be the answer here. At least the opening sentence is unclear. It speaks about "indicator for performance" as if the OP asked how he is going to be evaluated as an employee, while the OP asked something else: whether he is going to be recruited repeatedly as a postdoc.

@Dilworth OP asked why people are saying tenure or nothing. This answer says: because the long term research jobs (what OP wants) are mainly tenure track jobs, with some exceptions (also mentioned in this answer).

@BryanKrause, Unfortunately I don't understand neither the full terminology nor the grammar of the sentence "for most institutes that use research as a primary performance indicator, a tenure-track faculty position is it.", so possibly the sentence does say what you write. On the other hand, even what you write does not seem to be an answer to the OP: The OP doesn't want a long term research (single) job. But is asking something else: the OP wishes to have possibly many and short-term research positions, like postdocs. That is, the OP asks whether he can continue as a postdoc forever.

@Dilworth I agree that grammar is a bit funky, I'll try to edit it (hope you don't mind the edit, Spark). They asked if they can keep a job based on performance, not move jobs indefinitely.

Okay, maybe they have indeed asked this. The question itself is also ambiguous.

By all means, thanks for clarifying!

In the United States, at least, there are a lot more non-tenure research positions than is often perceived.
Even if we ignore the (vast) number of positions in which one can do fundamental scientific research outside of universities, there are lots of non-tenure-track research positions at universities as well.  Sometimes these positions are associated with individual grants ("soft money" positions), but the longer term ones are more often with various "centers" and "institutes", all of which tend to exist outside of traditional departments.  Some examples I'm personally familiar with include Harvard's Wyss Institute, BU's Hariri Institute, the MIT Broad Institute, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center.  These all involve complex mixes of faculty and non-faculty researchers in various complex arrangements, and can readily support long-term academic research careers past the "post-doc" phase.
For people at smaller institutions or stuck in a department-centric mindset, however, it's easy to overlook or discount these "non-traditional" careers.  Likewise, once people choose one path or the other, it's relatively rare to switch, though by no means unheard of.
This may be why you are being told "now or never" by various people.  You don't say what country you are from, so it also might be that things are different in your country. To the best of my knowledge, however, most other developed countries are much the same as the USA in having a large academic research "demi-monde", though the particular mechanisms and and organizations differ greatly.

If you were to do a postdoc at the Broad Institute, can you say you're a researcher at Harvard and/or at MIT? Do you have the same access to resources (eg, instruments, libraries, support) that a postdoc at Harvard/MIT would?

I don't know the full details, but most of the folks I've known there typically have an affiliation with at least one of those institutions, and thus would indeed be a member of MIT and/or Harvard, with all of the benefits therein.

Strictly speaking, there are no limitations on the number of postdocs that you work in. The limitations tend to be external and implied in the contracts or regulations around the issue of postdocs.
In France, there is a law against ongoing contracts if there is evidence of continuous employment and work for five years. So this would impact postdocs in France. I am not sure about other states.
Another example is the limitations of the short-term US visa or J-1s being limited to 5 years - Quora article
The other possible relevant angle is the granting institution of your postdocs have a 5 year limitation as well. Some institutions that grant post-docs nationally or states have time-limits. It might be worthwhile emailing or checking your current and previous post-docs to see whether there is a time limitation if you do decide to keep going with post-docs.

It's all situational

Maybe only 10% of cases these situations are relevant? If you are in France a 100%. If you have a visa then 100% but it sounds like it is not as common as you seem to imply. And I am not attempting to mislead as well

I am not sure how your nitpicking and hostility on just about everyone's post is helpful and in the spirit of StackExchange. I am pretty sure it has contributed to the low participation rates in the psychology SE. My comment was about the J-1 visa requirement and not about NSF or the NIH etc. Happy to amend my post though but I suspect that the NSF and NIH is not representative. But your persistent attitude of trying to catch people out and put ppl down is tozic. In Facebook you would have been called out for trolling. In the FB groups I moderate you would be blocked and banned without a blink

Happy to amend and do the research but I am arguing that it is rare from my impression of the OPs question. If OP is in France for example, someone would have told the OP about work limitations. If J-1 applies then the immigration department would have said something by now. If there is data about the spread of post docs then maybe your NSF and NIH would be relevant. But I suspect as OP is in comp sci, these agencies are irrelevant...

Okay, thanks for considering my comments.

No problem. There might be a study on post docs or good illustrative examples to draw conclusions from which would be interesting

Germany also has somewhat similar limits (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz). Relevant to this question, that law explicitly speaks of research positions that allow the employee to qualitfy [for tenure]. This is given as the reason for allowing researchers a longer time frame with fixted term positions than the respective limits for fixed term employment contracts in industry).

+1, but wish I could give another +1 for your name. Eric Bana on Full Frontal was hilarious.

Yay. A fellow Aussie! It's such an Aussie slang ain't it

Funding and institutional policies are the major barriers to your plan.
There are a fairly large number of fellowships available for newly-minted PhDs looking to start a postdoc. These are often only open to people who graduated within the last 1-2 years. A number of other fellowships have slightly longer cut-offs: the Burrows-Wellcome Fund CASI award cuts off at 60 months post-PhD, and the NIH's K99 program is also limited to people within 4-5 years of their degree, and all training grants cut off at ~7 years. At the same time, many places also prevent non-"permanent" staff from applying for pure research grants, on the grounds that you're a) committing the university to do years of work but b) might not have a funded position then. (Yes, this seems to apply even when the grant contains funding for that very position. No, they don't seem to see the Catch-22).
At the same time, you're also getting more expensive. My institution has a 5 year "term limit" for postdocs, after which you have to become a "Research Associate" or "Research Assistant." This title change requires a slightly higher (though still objectively low) salary and more benefits (retirement, etc).  The interaction between you a) costing more and b) definitely requiring money from a research grant, leads many lab heads to prefer younger applicants who cost less and could get their own money soon. To be clear, I think this is a totally ridiculous, wasteful, and possibly discriminatory—situation, and these policies ought to be reworked to avoid it.  Nevertheless, it's going to be tough until they are.
The solution is to make sure that you're a good value for the money. Along with producing solid research on your own, take an active role in helping out with other projects in the group. Look for money where you can. Some foundations don't care much about career stage. You can also look for funding opportunities where you'll have a major role, even if you're not the formal PI. There are a very few staff scientist funding programs too. The NIH has an R50 "Research Specialist" grant that supports similar jobs (though with some restrictions on the person and environment), as does the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Finally, you can lobby funders and agencies to reconsider their time-based eligibility limits. The NIH recently extended some K99 windows from 4 to 5 years for under-represented applicants, and I think the Wellcome Trust is removing all time considerations from some programs (though not CASI, which is probably the most relevant to a computer scientist).

While there's obviously a lot of correlation between age and experience, a preference for hiring cheaper and less experienced postdocs is a distinctly different goal than hiring based on age.

It nevertheless has a disparate impact on a protected class of people (older than 40), which is one legal standard under Title VII. Admittedly, it's a little weird here because one group's decisions (funders) is driving a second group's (PIs) decisions, but even if it's not a legal slam-dunk, I think the "emergent agism" is ethically questionable (and a waste of good, well-trained people!).

If I understand your question, it seems that you ask whether you can secure  postdoc jobs that will allow you to continue your research, as long as you are productive, forever. That is, without getting a tenure-track position or a permanent position.
The answer is most probably: "No" (for CS in North America). If you are not on a tenure track/permanent post after about five years of PhD, then even if you are productive you will find it very hard to find postdoc positions. Until you will get none, hence ending your research career in approximately less than 10 years after PhD completion, regardless of your productivity.
There are few rare exceptions: there are never-ending postdocs (research assistants of some sort) that go with their postdoc host for decades. But this is rare, and this is not a good position to be in (money wise, and independent research wise). On the other hand, if you find these positions good for you (no admin, no teaching though low salary and no ability to form your own group), you may like such deals.

You may want to note that your "about five years" figure is specifically for computer science in North America.  The appropriate number varies significantly across different fields and different regions.

Correct! -------

Large employers typically have some degree of standardization of compensation across hires.  Most large employers offer health care coverage as part of the standard compensation package, most large employers offer standard retirement packages as part of their standard compensation package.  You can't just tell Microsoft that you don't want a 401k or you want to opt out of the possibility of ever using their health care coverage.  Most large employers have rules about the salary ranges for employees based on type of position and level of experience.  You can't just tell Google "I want a job running a large team, but I want the job to be at T3 instead T6."  Bonuses are part of the standard package at many finance companies, and you can't just say when you're hired "I want to opt out of the bonus system."  At many law firms in order to do a certain level of work you need to be a partner in the firm, and many firms will not allow you to stay as an associate beyond a certain point.
Of course in all of these situations you could argue that if an employee wants to be compensated less than other employees in the same role, why shouldn't the company just take them up on that?  But again and again most professions don't decide to work this way.  It's bad for company morale.  It's expensive for HR to keep track of weird bespoke contracts.  Compensation well below the median is bad for retaining employees, since if the employee is valuable another company will hire them away with the standard package.
In academia in the United States, tenure is part of the standard package of compensation.  Positions without tenure for mid-career academics are unusual.  If a school wanted to start offering positions without tenure, they would either have to significantly increase compensation in some other way, or they would end up in a situation where all their good employees left.  If they hired some people with tenure and some without tenure to do the same job it would be difficult to maintain a conducive working environment.

Everyone's calculation would be a bit different, but to me tenure is worth roughly as much as a guaranteed $300K severance package plus $15K/year in salary.  In academia hiring only happens once per year and most jobs are located in cities with no comparable job opportunities even if you were to leave academia.  So I'd want at least 2 years of expected salary at age 50 in severance to consider a non-tenured position in a college town, plus extra money for retirement to compensate for the possibility of being forced to retire a few years earlier than planned.

Define “productive”.
Getting some form of job security is quite desirable so normally qualified candidates will eventually get offered tenure so that professors can enter longer term projects such as supervising students, and can tackle longer term problems without the fear of loosing your position because of decreased productivity over the short term.
Possibly the best example of such a long term endeavour was Andrew Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s last theorem, which took 6 years to complete, something unthinkable to attack unless you have tenure.  Of course while the research of most tenured professors is not conducted over so many years in such quasi-secret as Wiles, it would be wrong to suggest most stop tenured faculty working/being productive once they are tenured.
Tenure also plays an important role in protecting academic freedom: tenured professors can undertake (and publish) research on or discuss controversial issues without fear of retribution (in principle), and can likewise criticize others (including administrators) usually with no consequence on their employment (provided some limits of civility is maintained).
Overall, I venture to say that good tenured professors are the backbone of most academic systems, and universities know this.  Granting them tenure is a mark of confidence which reflects the commitment of the institution to the candidate: if you are not tenured after many years, people (read: students and funding agencies) will suspect something’s not right with the professor.
One can not deny that some abuse the system and the privilege of tenure, but thankfully these are not the majority.

I don't need the kind of job security that allows me to get paid if I stop working—I just need some kind of agreement that I can keep my job while I'm productive.

You're misunderstanding tenure. Tenure is much closer to what you said you want. Professors don't actually keep their jobs if they just sit around and do nothing - and their employment agreements don't say that they have this entitlement.** Tenure is about not getting fired without good cause**. Effectively, it's about not getting fired when you are (at least moderately) productive; and not being in a continual rat-race of having to please and impress people to maintain your position.
Also, post-doc employment conditions are terrible, but in a sense that's a different problem; i.e. I believe academic staff unions should make temporary and fixed-term positions at least as expensive per hour to institutions than permanent positions, if not more, to discourage them from artificially preferring temporaries.


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I downoaded articles from libgen (didn't know was illegal) and it seems that advisor used them to publish his work
I did download some articles from libgen and by then I didn't know it wasn't right to do so, well some people say that there's no problem but honestly I think it is and I'm scared for what this articles where used for without me knowing about it.
Short story
I downloaded articles. I started writing my protocol thesis with advisor/professor supervision, based on parts of these articles. Advisor then asked me to do a summary of some of them, I did it and then sent it to his mail. We then stopped working due to him "I'm very busy, lot of work at uni, COVID-19" (I then realize he was lying, he was indeed working on my topic preparing to show it as his own work) and I said "don't worry, I understand". For some time I kept studying on my own until I felt lost with no direction and it was during this time also that I knew that the articles and content from libgen is, in general, illegal to use. I didn't scare, I just thought that I had nothing on my protocol since it's based on libgen content. I just thought on commenting this to advisor next time I saw him (personally, didn't want to say this through mail) and ask permission or purchase if needed, the articles that I was going to use. About 3 months later (end of august) since the last message of advisor, he said "Sorry for speaking until now, I've been working on the topic, I've structured how your thesis would be, are you still interested on working?" I said "I understand, don't worry. How the structure of my thesis is (perhaps here was the time to say: stop working on it there's something I need to tell you, but I didn't, I didn't think things would go further whiout telling me previously)? Yes, although right now I'm taking a summer course" (course that started at beginning of august). A month passed and I never got a reply. A few days ago, I realized that advisor is going to give a talk (within days) about my thesis topic.
So say we planned to work on article X, which contained methods w,x about topic AB, BC, CD using Y.
He plans to give a talk about topic "x applied on AB, BC, CD"  and on his summary, he mentioned parts contained on my protocol that I proposed, i.e. my original ideas, and also he plans to use Y aswell, not sure if the same Y as mine, wouldn't surprise me if it's the same Y.
Why did he steal my work? Because it is new, this kind of works have been done in other parts of the world but not on ours. But there's a major problem that really worries me, as I said this -work on my protocol (which was never completed nor registered)- it's based of articles that I downloaded from libgen, fortunatelly only 5 of them are in the case of "need to purchase, free to reuse on thesis/dissertation but need to comply some terms", the rest of them, afaiu, are free to use, they are on ResearchGate and you can download them.
Notice that I am not the one publishing anything, I'm not giving a talk, I would never use work taken without permisson or withouth purchasing when authors are requiring this actions for their works. The thing that I did was to take part of some from these restricted articles for my protocol and a summary, and sent to advisor. And it's highly likely that these content is going to be used to give a talk and to publish a paper. Am I in trouble? Am I in legal troubles?
Please help me, I don't know what to do. I don't want to comment this to advisor, not even personally if I could, I don't trust at all in this person.

I think we had a question before with the conclusion that citing papers obtained via scihub is perfectly fine. The rest seems to be some unclear mess about advisor-advisee authorship rights.

Obligatory link: https://custodians.online/

I am not quite sure your supervisor did what you think he did, but—and it is always a good idea—what about some chill? Take a break, dedicate some time to your hobby, go hiking, etc. I am serious. Psychological health is important.

Oleg, he did what I said he did. I commented this issue of advisor stelaing my work to another professor and he agreeed with me, with some slight differences of wording, she told me that "he is an opportunistic". But at this point my mind is not into that. It hurts yes, I still cannot believe it, yes. Right now I'm into the other problem of legal things

I don't understand .... Reading between the lines and trying to understand the situation, it appears as if the advisor finally had gotten around to putting the time in on reviewing and revising and reworking what the advisee had submitted. Is that a bad thing? Is the talk the advisor giving a talk to a conference where the advisee is not being mentioned? Or is it some local talk like seminar or colloquium?

Carol, there was never something to call 'work' thanks to him "not having time". We starting by writting first the protocol (90% mine), the next thing was the thesis writting. I was very interested in working and I used to ask lots of questions, like what's next? what do I do? why this? I don't get it. He was always like meh..yes, idk, keep searching, i'm too busy due uni/cov. I accepted all of these because I trusted him and had good references. Next thing I know is: he is about to give a talk (International congress) about my thesis topic and until today he hasn't said a word to me about it.

Is it really necessary to downvote this beginning researcher's question so much?

I am not entirely sure what the problem is or what you are enquiring about. As pointed out by others there seem to be two different issues:

You downloading articles from libgen (or scihub for that matter)
Your relation with your supervisor and how to get credit for work you've done.

The first point is fairly simple. It may be illegal to download articles from libgen and the likes (depending on the jurisdiction). But using this content in other scientific papers and projects is perfectly fine as long as it is properly referenced.
As for the second point, you may want to talk with your supervisor as to how he thinks to share credit for the work. If you have indeed contributed to the research or project your contribution should be acknowledged. If a paper gets published with significant input from you but without you being mentioned could be a violation of ethics codes.

I'm not the one who did this "But using this content in other scientific papers and projects is perfectly fine as long as it is properly referenced." he did it, and will share it on the talk. I'm not sure if something could be done about sharing credit. First, the origin of the 5 papers was... well you know. I, by no means, want credit for this. Second, we never concreted anything about work, even tho the thesis topic idea and other things were completely mine, formally because he was always "busy"

You still seem to miss the point: No one cares or has to care where you got the papers from in the first place. If your supervisor shares his insights in a talk and cites the papers you downloaded there is no problem with that. He could simply go back and download the papers himself from the journal websites or ask the authors for copies. That's absolutely fine. As to whether or not you deserve credit for "your idea" depends on what you really provided and whether or not that idea was unique and original.

Besides everything that has already been said, the biggest problem is stealing someone's finished work without referring to the original author. However, you did not do this. The moral deviant here isn't you - and no legal consequences are going to will to you.
Let me try to explain why.
The open-access or on libgen books are more downloaded and cited than others behind the paywalls. A lot of studies are finding this (e.g. see https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2017/11/22/open-access-books-are-downloaded-cited-and-mentioned-more-than-non-oa-books). And considering that the scientists will do their jobs aiming large range of readers as well they are already paid for the development of their studies by private or public institutions, seems like ok if you read books from libgen and do the reference. Imagine that you could borrow the book from one friend or the library school.
Besides that, assuming you are not making any harm to nobody as well as helping to amplify the reach of those studies, in fact, you are helping people to access knowledge. (And knowledge must be free for all!!)
Nevertheless, if you not confident yet and have the conditions to reimburse, so you could just send the money directly to the author. Because, in the end, she/he receives a little part of the price!!! If you take into account that the big publishers are who retaining the money and not the authors, using libgen and sci-hub is a big favor for the authors.
It is especially true outside of renamed US and EU universities, where we don't have money to access knowledge and don't have a choice. Is very common to ask for the authors for their work if isn't present on the web for free.
Resuming:

The money from the sales goes almost all to the editors.
Science needs been free to disseminate and contribute to the progress of knowledge.
As the first goal, authors want more to amplify their reach than get rich.
Ok, that's necessary some kind of retribution to the scientists work, but the books are a very little part of their budget.
And there is no possibility for many young or/and poor researchers to buy books.
by the end, you could read them at the library or even borrowing.

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How much would an outside second Ph.D. supervisor get paid in the U.S.?
I have been asked to consider being a second supervisor on a Ph.D. project for a doctoral candidate at a U.S. university. As I am in the Netherlands, this does not fall under my normal employment. Does anyone know where I might find information about the normal fee for this type of supervision?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.

There might be some possibilities for indirect compensation. I think it's not unreasonable to want to actually meet the candidate and that travel should be covered by the U.S. university. This in turn should allow you to save some of your own travel money, if you combine it with some other visits in the U.S.

My guess is that if they were offering any pay, they would have said so up front.

As far as I know nothing.
I've never heard of outside supervisors (in industry or academia) ever getting paid anything.
You should talk to your employer, if he is willing to donate some of your time for this supervision. (Depending on the research being done, there may also be some benefit for him.)

I really don't know about the US, but in Sweden there is at least an option to get paid if you are the official, on-paper, second supervisor for an extended period of time (e.g., multiple years). You would not get rich and the university won't like it (because of costs, and more importantly, required paperwork). As a data point, being second supervisor of a PhD student is valued at about 5% of a full-time job at my current university, so you could expect about 5% of your yearly salary as an official external second supervisor.
That said, much, much, much more commonly external people are asked informally to help out without any explicit agreement and without monetary compensation. These are essentially being paid in collaboration opportunities and papers, not in money.
In that sense I would ask, but expect that the answer will be 0$.

Wow! 5%. I don't even get 5% for being a first supervisor. We get 1.25% for being a second supervisor.

@IanSudbery That seems grotesque to me. That would mean that you could co-supervise 80 students if you had nothing else to do.

@IanSudbery That said, I don't know what being a co-supervisor entails in your university, but around here it means regular meetings with the student, and helping with research and publications (so actual ongoing interactions, not just evaluation of the thesis).

Generally it involves as much or as little as you are willing to put into it. I have some second supervisees that spend 50% of there time with me, who I meet every week, and have co-supervision meetings with there first supervisor once a week, but no one forces me to do this.

I, too, don't know about the US but in the UK we paid someone an honorarium of about £250 for serving as supervisor to my part time PhD student while I was on maternity leave. So that was for a calendar year of part time supervision, equivalent of serving as supervisor for 6 months. Pretty poor compensation if you ask me, but it was formal with a contract.
In the neoliberal university you are likely to get no money unless you ask for it as the powers that be will hope you don't ask. Determine what you would consider to be a fair rate and start there.

I think you meant to comment on the other answer :). I sure hope £250 isn't 5% of your yearly salary!

You are right. Sorry.

Certainly here in the UK the answer would be $0.

Not true, as I said, we pay (a little) for outside supervisors at my Russell Group Uni, at least in cases of maternity leave.

Even if they are second supervisors?

I suppose it depends on the uni but at mine each supervisor has a percentage of the student and the most common split is 50/50 so there really isn't a second and a first supervisor.

All students at my place are required to have a second supervisor to provide a broader range of experience, as a safety value for if the relationship with the first supervisor goes wrong, and generally to provide accountability to the first supervisor. I have some students that are 50/50, but in many cases its much more like 80/20.

When I got my PhD it was more like you describe. This 50/50 was new to me.

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Postdoc speculative application
I am just about to finish my PhD and a prof I know well and I were discussing future postdoc labs. They suggested I email a friend of theirs in the US. I got a very positive reply saying my research experience and interest are perfect for them and they will have funding for a postdoc. They then said to give them a few days to find out when they will have the money and if I can be flexible about when I could start. I replied yes I can be flexible. It’s been two weeks and he has not got back to me with the interview date and when they will have the money as they promised.
Should I be worried or does things like this take time? I have another interview lined up hence why I am curious as to know when I should expect to hear from them.

Patience is a virtue... They have lots of things to do - may even be holiday season...

Should I be worried or does things like this take time?

No, it often takes much longer than two weeks to organize a postdoc job.  Remind them every three weeks, and be patient.


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Should I email my professor about a recommendation letter if he has offered me a job?
So I've just finished my Master's and my advisor has offered me a tentative position to work in his lab. I say tentative because it's dependent on if his project gets funding. He emailed me recently right before his leave that his project has been shortlisted and that they'll hopefully hear back by early Fall and that he'll keep me updated with regards to the position. This was last month and in the meantime i've been doing an internship to keep busy.
Recently however I've been thinking about applying to other jobs and PhD positions to keep my options open. However, I'm not sure if it's appropriate to ask my advisor if I can list him down as one of my reference and I don't want to blow my chances with him either. I drafted an email telling him that as his offer is not yet guaranteed I'm considering applying to various other positions and if he would be able to provide me a letter of recommendation. Yet I made it clear that I would still prefer to work with him. Is this fine? Or should I not ask him at all as he might then see me as a fickle candidate?

As you seem to have a good relationship with that professor, I think it is wise to ask for his recommendation. In some context, the absence of a recommendation from the former advisor could be frown upon.
I think any normal researcher will understand why you are applying to other positions, especially if you mention that his offer is your number 1 choice. In short, yes, ask!

In addition: If that professor does not respond well to your question, you may not want to have them as your PhD advisor.

But what if the professor gives a bad recommendation, so as to keep the person for him(her)self. This did happen with one of my friends when he left a project, where he wasn't happy, during his post doc and this is Cambridge I am talking about.

@DumbCoder this is indeed a possibility, but I don't think it is that frequent. As I said any 'normal' (read: sane) researcher would understand the situation.

But what if the professor gives a bad recommendation — If you don't trust them to write a good recommendation, then you definitely don't want them as your PhD advisor!

Do ask for a recommendation. That does not mean, you are not interested in his position, but he knows all too well, that he can't guarantee that. So why shouldn't he recommend you? You are obviously good enough for him to consider hiring you.
On the other hand, it would be odd not to look around for other options. Especially in that situation.
So if he won't recommend you, he will not be a good supervisor, I would think. You can only win.


text:
Can academic teaching and quality research go hand-in-hand?
[Long]
I have been working in a very well known university in India. I am a faculty member in the department of Computer Science. My appointment to the university is somewhat temporary given the condition I have to finish my PhD within x-years (Please ignore x for the time). If I can not finish my PhD within this duration, I have to leave the job and/or PhD.
Given the following conditions, you could see that it is difficult.

This is one of the premier and oldest university in India which is very well known for its quality teaching.
The university also expects top quality research for acceptance of the PhD thesis.
All the faculties of the same level as mine, are one of the back-bone of the department(s) of the university.
All the faculties must contribute towards institutional development in addition to quality teaching and research/PhD.

I can understand that this is a good sign that we can learn teaching/research with time. However, for me it seems very tough. I have been planning for a full-time PhD somewhere abroad with a stipend. However, I am tensed about future opportunities post PhD.
I understand that PhD students are given some amount of teaching load as a part of stipend policy. But, this academic teaching load is really incomparable and is too high.
Considering above facts, how to manage these two things together?
[Short]
Can academic teaching and quality research go hand-in-hand given a time-bound on job?
P.S. I belong to computer science and mathematics community and an independent scholar. Research is my passion.
[Edits]

There are two different courses (full course) assigned each with a student strength of 100 (approx.).
The courses involve labs as well.
So, in every 1.5 day, you could assume to have a class for which you need to plan your day properly (such as preparing materials, teaching slides, assignments, lab assignments, surprise tests if any, and few other things)

The point of writing I have been planning for a full-time PhD somewhere abroad with a stipend. is to get advises from experienced persons here on Academia.SE on whether should I go for it or not.

I asked a similar question sometime ago. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14997/are-there-tenure-track-academic-jobs-where-teaching-and-research-are-given-equal

It really depends a lot on what exactly your department expects from you when you teach a class. If you have a team of TAs that is one thing. If you have 200 students, no help and are expected to grade weekly homework and be available at all times to answer their questions individually it is another.

What is the question here? If it's "is it possible to teach and do research at the same time", then the answer is "of course, everyone does it". If you feel that your teaching load is too high, then you should at least tell us how many classes you have and how large they are. If it's "how do I manage my schedule dividing time between teaching and research", then it's a different question.

I have been planning for a full-time PhD somewhere abroad with a stipend. What does this sentence have anything to do with the rest of this question?

A better question would be "can quality academic teaching go hand in hand with research?" It is often the teaching that is seen as a nuisance, not the research.

It certainly can, but in many cases it is not. Certainly, there are many top researchers who are at research institutes (IAS for instance) who don't even teach, let alone have quality teaching.

Sure, this is exactly what is expected of tenure track faculty at research intensive universities in the US. It is a lot easier when you have a little teaching experience and a little research experience before diving into the "deep" end, but there is no reason teaching and research cannot go together. In the US a PhD student might be expect to teach a single class in both the fall and spring semesters while a tenure track faculty might be expected to teach 3 classes each semester.

There was a suggested edit trying to clarify your last sentence. But it was not clear to me whether your intended meaning was "in fall and spring semesters combined" or "each", so I expanded it to include both. Please feel free to trim down or delete to fit your intention.

@TomChurch thanks. The focus of my answer is that at a lot of schools TT faculty are expected to teach a lot and still get research done.

In the US I feel it is common to have a team of TAs and so the number of hours of work outside of lectures and setting homework and exams is limited. This often isn't the case in other countries.

@Lembik That really depends on the school and the class.  In some countries, there is often no graded homework.

@Lembik Even with a team of TAs, the number of hours of work outside of lectures can be substantial for a large and complex class.

Wow, 3 classes each semester (plus research) seems a lot! Is this specific to some fields (humanities, engineering etc.) or generally true?

@theindigamer I don't have hard numbers, but they are not that uncommon: http://higheredprofessor.com/2015/05/11/what-is-the-typical-teaching-load-for-university-faculty/

It can, and should. This does not always happen because researchers may have forgotten how hard it was to get the basics right. In a way researcers who publish things a lot should be the best explainers, in theory. In practice some fields do a lot of obfurscation in their papers so they do not know how to put explanations out simply.
In fact teaching helps you as a researcher, sometimes at the expense of students. It makes you much more aware of where your skills are lacking and where you might have hidden misunderstanding. But you can only ever appreciate this if you can accept this fact. Also thinking about the simple explanations works towards making better publications. Having a wall to bounce your ideas against surely can not be bad thing.

I don't see why researchers should have a leg up when it comes to explaining things. The stew pot of effective teaching has many ingredients: creativity, an engaging, dynamic presence, an ability to relate to students, sound instructional design, the ability to write a fair and objective tests, creating assignments that reinforce course concepts, etc. There may be some overlap between this skill set and that of researchers, but I'm not sure I agree that "researchers who publish things a lot should be the best explainers, in theory."

I'd tend to agree with @J.R. that "researcher" is surely not the right tag for people best qualified to explain anything. At the very least, let's revise that to "scholar"? Not all people doing research are reasonable scholars... nor do all scholars have communication skills... nor do all effective communicators necessarily know any high-end stuff to communicate.

@J.R. Publications should include explanations of why things were made, how you came to this and what foundation was used. How can i trust a researchers who can not explain themselves to be relevant. Wheter or not this translates to good teaching is another thing. Ok so a individual researcher may rely on collaboration to get things done. But this works in teaching too, i know atleast one university teacher that outsources lectures, and instead designs exercises very well.

@paulgarrett Ok i will try to think of a way to write it a bit differently tomorrow. Teaching rarely gets to the really high end stuff...

Indeed, not-high-end teaching is wildly different from high-end. The relevant skill-sets are wildly different, and the level of relevant scholarship is wildly different. Baby-sitting and crowd-control on one end, explanation of current cutting-edge research on the other. And the in-between is in many regards even more amorphous in terms of optimizing skill-sets and goals.

@joojaa - While publications do contain explanations and rationale, I still think there's a big difference between explaining research in a publication and explaining concepts to students. Journal articles and textbooks are not exactly written in the same style – one is geared toward experts while the other caters to novices. I think there are much stronger links between research and advising than between research and teaching, and I've known more than a few accomplished researchers who were mediocre in the classroom at best.

It isn't necessary that being good at one can infer the same in the other. I've noticed quite s few examples of this sort. But, teaching can truly attribute to research and vice versa as long as they are on the same track.

Yes they both could be. But consider that you teaching a subject x which is completely orthogonal to the research you are doing. I find it difficult to focus on whether to focus on research or teaching in such cases.

@Coder: I absolutely agree. That's why stated the line as long as they are are on the same track

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authors: سیامک متوسلیان پویا


text:
Paper getting rejected from many journals after no proper review - What could be the problem?
It has been approximately 2 years that we are trying to a push a paper(CS) to get it published. We think, the work is/was a novel that focused on the development of a new dynamic system that works under uncertainty constraints. However, it gets rejected every time and the most frustrating thing is that the reviews we get are completely absurd. Please see the following reasons of rejection in brief (Duration of review is written in bracket). Submission to subsequent journals also included after incorporating review comments of the previous journal.

Journal 1: The abstract should not contain citation. [14 months]
Journal 2: The paper is out of scope.[2.5 months] -- The paper was actually coming in the scope of the journal. But, after request also, the EIC didn't take it.
Journal 3: This journal have stopped publishing papers related to ... [1 month]
Journal 4: Similar type of work was done in [some old papers published by journals in Beall's list]. Hence, it does not offer any novelty. [7 months] -- We are sure that the reviewer didn't read the paper. Probably, (she)he did some google search over the title. Got something and commented.

After lots of improvement and getting the paper reviewed by few fellow researchers in our lab, we are not getting anything substantial about such random rejection.

What could be some possible problem?
Should we put the paper in the garbage and move on with other works?
Are these predatory publishers (published articles) the rejection for our paper?

It sounds based on the limited information you've supplied here, that the journals you are submitting to don't think this topic is of interest to their current readership. Either this topic is so unpopular that nobody is interested in publishing on it right now (that can happen), or you're not submitting to the journals that are interested.

One thing that stuck out to me is your comment with "after getting the paper reviewed by fellow researchers in our lab" (my emphasis). Given the type of reviews, you really need to get feedback from outside.

@TobiasKildetoft Okay. Presently, we are doing it. But, does it make really a strong component?

I would call the rejection reason of journal 1 insulting, if they didn't give you any other reasons apart from that. Was that an excerpt or actually the only reason they gave?

One possibility to consider: your paper isn't clear, so the reviewers aren't understanding it (or it is so confusing they don't think it is worth putting the effort into reviewing it in depth).

The common practice in Computer Science is to submit a paper to a conference first. A journal version follows up if the conference paper is accepted. Things change rapidly in CS, you don't want to wait 14 months or your idea might be no longer novel.

I feel that it is worth mentioning that given your previous questions here, a picture is forming that you are having an unusually hard time getting your work published in general. That might indicate that you are doing something in a sub-optimal way, and it might help to try to figure out what that is rather than focusing on each separate case.

@lighthousekeeper actually, that is the two liner comment we got after that many days. Yes 14*30=420 days.

Could you share with us which domain in CS are you trying to publish.

@ÉbeIsaac It is related to Machine Intelligence.

@Coder You mean a combo of computational intelligence, and knowledge representation and reasoning?

@ÉbeIsaac Exactly. Now, with my old prof. we have decided to add a few more things to it. Hope, it works out. Kindly see the 4th comment (my own comment) of ian_iter's answer here. -- probably, the rejection's reason is that.

Have you tried aiming lower and getting it into a topical conference, trying to get feedback there, in person, possibly?

@CaptainEmacs how about publishing the work as a Book Chapter? As, by these many years on, the work seems obsolete.

If it's not new, I am not sure it should be published. But if it's new/original, just not very current, any of these work. I know people whose book chapters are more often quoted than their peer reviewed papers.

Assuming you're submitting to English-language journals, you may want to have your paper checked by native English speakers. Your grammar and word usage in this short question are poor; a paper written like this (or even much better-written than this) sets major barriers in its own way, and is much more likely to be rejected than an equal-quality paper that is written in clear, standard English.

Don't bother with this. Work on another ideas and try to read/focus on problems in high impact journals.

I don't think there is only one reason for all the rejections you got. The first journal seemed to reject you because of a formality, which could have been prevented (abstracts usually never have citations). Maybe they think if you can't follow the submission guidelines to every last bit you don't deserve to be published (which can be unreasonable).
After that your research was already 14 months old. Did you do a new literature research? The novelty could have faded during that time. Journal 2's and 3's rejections seem legit and happened in a relatively reasonable time frame.
I guess journal 4's answer does look like the editor/referee didn't read it in detail. But before accusing them of lack of interest or ethics, you should ask yourself if your research has the quality and novelty to be published.
You also need to overthink your choice of journals. High-impact journals are often not the best choice for your research due to their high standards. They also tend to not publish very specialized articles.
My concrete advice: Review your article and try to improve it. Get criticism from colleagues and take it seriously. Compare your article to similar articles from your field and apply those same standards. Then choose a journal that is common in your field and that published articles related to your work and try there. Good luck!

An addition regarding #4 and the "predatory" journals: if something similar has been done before, the novelty is gone, no matter the impact / ethics of the journal it was published in.

Good answer (+1), but as for the first journal, rejecting a paper after 14 months due to a reference in the abstract is certainly unacceptable. Desk-rejection after, say, 14 days would be reasonable.

@lighthousekeeper I agree that taking 14 months to make such a decision is too long, but my point was that it could have been prevented in the first place. Alas, it doesn't matter at this point. One should not linger on such matters for too long and just keep going forward.

That is true. I certainly added a few things. However, by that time, few new techniques had already popped over scholarly pages. Our method probably didn't do better these new ones. However, to be honest, I didn't compare our method with these newly published works. Probably, this deficiency in the paper is leading to the rejection. Thank you for such a wonderful answer and insights. As @lighthousekeeper pointed out, a '14' days would have saved my whole work. This work is now fully rubbish as pointed out by someone earlier.

@Coder Porentially good articles becoming obsolete by long review processes are a sad reality. I wish you good luck with your work.

Thank you very much. This helps at this time. However, it is not a good idea to hold this thought forever. Moving on with new research. Fun fact: When I had submitted my work, I was a masters student. Now, I am doing a job and Ph.D. Happy, though!

In my opinion, journals #2, #3, and #4 tend to reinforce the same underlying problem with your paper. It appears that the main theme of your paper is now obsolete and of not much interest to the community. The journals are NOT interested because they think their readership is no longer interested in that topic.
Secondly, either your paper does not offer any significant improvement to existing techniques (just minor/cosmetic changes, or no motivation behind your variations) or you haven't done a good job in highlighting them.
As suggested above, get some help from outside (your lab) including, if possible, from outside India. At the very least, however, get advice from a respected researcher (e.g. someone with a few papers in that or similarly reputed journal). Perhaps you're over-estimating the quality or relevance or layout or contribution of your work.
Best of luck.

I have a different theory. When a reviewer meets with a paper that is unsound but cannot prove that it is unsound, they generally side step and find other mistakes to reject the paper. It takes a lot of work (at least several days) to find a solid proof that the method cannot provide the results demonstrated. Not many people have the time or will to do that. I have witnessed a paper rejected with proof to be accepted by another journal, for that, I cannot blame the reviewers.
To solve the issue, try to show many consistent results to convince reviewers that your results are not made up. A similar situation happened to me at the start of my PhD, the reviewers were a little more direct and helped me out to figure the issue. A two full-page of results taken from multiple images and a detailed verbal explanation of how the method works convinced them. Try the same.

Thank you very much sir. I did it and submitted to other journal and is now under review.

Glad to be of help, and good luck this time.

In addition, consider having it edited by an external party before you submit the paper. (It's something I happen to do, among other things, which I mention for the sake of full disclosure.) Why? It is possible that your writing contains many gaps that you and your colleagues fill in automatically but that make the paper hard to read for others. An external party is much more likely to spot those gaps and he or she may also be a much better writer.

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text:
Colleagues don't congratulate me or cheer me on when I do good work
When colleagues that don't co-author with me and are in separate projects, writing different papers, I've noticed they don't congratulate me, when I give them exciting progress.  They're around for the gossip, and are always willing to listen to gossip or bad news.  But when I have exciting news to report, e.g. a new paper, they are silent.
I do try to cheer my colleagues on, but I realize I cannot force them to do the same.
How could I deal with this mentally?

What is your position? PI, grad student, etc

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. Please see this FAQ before posting another comment.

You're right that many academics (and I suppose not only academics) somehow systematically fail to encourage their colleagues, and do not congratulate their successes.
Ideally, yes, at least "mentors" would do so, all the more in light of the general failure. But, in my experience, mentorship is not to be reliably expected. Sadly. Let's not bother to talk about certain tendencies to "keep people down"...
So your situation doesn't surprise me, and I wouldn't expect much change anytime soon. If you can find a situation where people give you positive feedback, cherish it. And, as I've been thinking about more and more, you might remind yourself to be sure to give other people positive feedback, when you are in a relatively senior position at least!

Then I wonder why so many PhD students suffer from mental illness. Surely this issue is minimal, but a big drop in the vase that just fuels self loathing more and more. Also because NOONE is told that at the beginning of their PhD studies

Academia might be more like a publicly-funded daycare center for misfits than industry, but that doesn't mean that is its main function. In industry nobody gets cheered on for doing "good" work occasionally. That's what people are paid to do, all day and every day.

@alephzero People in all sorts of industries seem to light up when I make them compliments for their good work. A chef who makes the best pizza. A nurse who makes everything more endurable by being soothing. A hairdresser who just "gets" my hair (it's complicated). Sort of like these people are humans and not some kind of robots.

+1 for that: you might remind yourself to be sure to give other people positive feedback, when you are in a relatively senior position at least!

No need to wait until you're in a senior position. Do it now!

@alephzero I genuinely loathe this thinking, it's the source of a plethora of relational problems and people that think like this are also blind to the consequences. I strongly suggest to reevaluate the fact that people are human beings, with a psychology, and not machines. Lastly if you say that "nobody gets cheered on for doing "good" work occasionally" then you've been in a toxic industry environment

@alephzero That said people in industry often get raises, bonuses, or promotions from the higher-ups if they do a good or superlative job, and that mostly serves the same function. By contrast, such things are fairly rare in academia. You might get a raise occasionally but it's not a major thing to aim for. E.g., you don't get a bonus for publishing an important paper in a high-impact journal that makes the university look good.

@user2352714 You don't necessarily directly get a bonus from it, but it does look good on your CV, which helps for getting higher-paid positions later. Which is pretty much how it usually works in industry, too (though this varies significantly by industry with some, such as sales, tending to be much more bonus/commission based than others.)

I think this is just the way academics normally behave. We tend to work in silos. Those in different silos don't understand our work. Those in the same silo just take success for granted.
Win the Nobel in Chemistry or Economics and you will get congratulated, but not for much less than that. Win a local award and people will cheer you on (Teacher of the Year, say). But generally they are just happy (or not) to be working with you.
I worked in academia for about 40 years and don't remember any instances of congratulations except for the few times I won an award, sometimes a shared award. You might be congratulated, actually, when you turn out a new doctoral student who has written a nice thesis, but the work was mostly theirs, not yours.
We are quiet, generally, and just get on with it.

You are truly luck if “the work was mostly theirs, not yours”.

Of course, you can take things as "defended phd thesis", "somebody wants to work wkth you", "somebody asks your opinion on something", "somebody wants you to give a talk" as compliments.

While this might be widespread (can’t tell), this is by no means universal. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve always experienced positive, supportive work environments, and congratulating others for minor achievements, and celebrating them, is very much the norm here. In many labs it’s customary to open a bottle of sparkling wine for every paper published … but even where this isn’t the case there will be some kind of recognition, and offering congrats at the water cooler is very much de rigueur.

This really has nothing to do with academics, literal cavemen probably complained about the same type of thing.   You can find countless quotes across history about how bad news gets around faster than good news, lies going around the world before the truth even gets out of bed etc etc etc.

@KonradRudolph A bottle of wine for every paper? It sounds like you guys are just looking for any excuse. :)

@stackoverblown, at Cambridge it is Sherry. And, yes, any excuse.

@Buffy I was also at Cambridge. Sherry was reserved for College functions for me :-) Luckily — can’t stand the stuff.

@KonradRudolph, you need to find better quality Jerez. And "after dinner" was a "college function" when I visited. Brilliant multi-discipline conversations, though.

Try to start a cultural shift in your area
Others seem to be implying that this is just "how things are" in academia and you should accept it and move on. It's easier to say that when you have reached a high, respected position in your field, have published countless papers, received awards, given keynote presentations, etc. At that point, for the most part, you know you are doing well, and a single rejection or acceptance doesn't have as great an impact on you. You don't mention what stage you have reached in your career, but for those in PhD or postdoc positions, this stuff is often a big deal, and there is nothing wrong with hoping that you might get congratulated when you get a bit of success.
So what can you do? Step one is to make a point of congratulating others. Ask about their progress, and show enthusiasm for their achievements. Doesn't matter where they are in the academic hierarchy, almost everyone likes talking about themselves and being appreciated.
Then you can try to do this in a slightly more formal context. Make a time every week or two when you and a bunch of your colleagues will meet up to share news, some coffee and a cake/pack of biscuits. Make a point of going round the room and asking who has achievements they would like to mention e.g. papers published, grants accepted (even small ones), presentations given, or whatever. And given them a round of applause or a "well done". If no one has anything to celebrate, which will happen plenty of weeks, then commiserate. There's bound to be someone with a paper sitting in its 4th month of review, or who's just heard back from the dreaded Reviewer 3.
It's not going to change your local culture overnight. And you may find that some just aren't interested. So pick the easiest targets first - your friends, closest colleagues, those at the same career stage as you, the friendliest lecturers/professors. Hopefully if it catches on it might gather a bit of momentum. Note the value of cake/biscuits/doughnuts in tempting people out of their offices - make a rota for who brings the tasty snacks. If you really can't persuade those in your immediate vicinity, perhaps you can do something similar online, looking for groups on social media who are all studying in the same area.
Sure, don't rely on praise entirely. If it's not forthcoming, that absolutely does not diminish your success. Be proud of your work regardless. But there's nothing wrong with wanting to hear "well done", and equally plenty to be gained from saying it to others.

I love this answer. There are actually more benefits in congratulations and praise than just the slow chipping away at a negative culture that you discuss. First, other people will appreciate your generosity and become more likely to reciprocate. And second, being generous with congratulations serves as antidote against one's own (perhaps unacknowledged) envy, wich is a much less pleasant feeling than whatever is the opposite of Schadenfreude.

I agree. Lead by example. I once met a research team leader who was like this. Everyone in the team went around with smiles on their faces. The more you do it to others, the more they will tend to do it to you. Of course there are always exceptions. There are super-ambitious people who will tread on others to get their way, and insecure people who don't want to feel lower than others. The former are impossible to change, the latter may respond to kindness eventually!  Most people just absorb the local atmosphere and go along with it.

+1 we have a designated person in our institute who sends a monthly email highlighting the various achievements that have occurred that month, such as papers being published or successful PhD viva exams. It's nice to celebrate these things.

What do you need the felicitations for?
If you do good work, at some point you will be collecting best papers awards, perhaps even lifetime awards or the like and even that gets stale at some point, as far as ego is concerned. They are very useful to boost a career, no question, so one certainly should not scoff at them, but one should not make oneself dependent on them.
I find a quiet "interesting paper" comment accompanied by a small nod (i.e. without sarcasm) by a respected colleague to be one of the greatest compliments possible. Your work being cited by good researchers another one; however, do not expect these.
In the end, you should know yourself best whether you do a good job. The exciting part is not the new paper, but the new insight and that does not depend on acclamation by others. A new truth or insight, that is the ultimate prize, after all.
If you absolutely need external motivational feedback, find fellow enthusiasts in the field and exchange with them. Usually they will be scattered around the globe rather than at your location, but today that really does not matter anymore.

I once worked in a place where the highest complement paid was something like "Not too shabby". Repeated again for extreme emphasis.

@Buffy Was that in the UK?

No. It is pretty common in Maine, actually. Also for a description of blueberry pancakes if they are good enough (i.e. "not too bad, not too bad").

@Buffy Ah, New England, then ;-)

I once addressed a colleague as Professor with that emphasis, just after her promotion. That is all it took.

@Buffy Hm, "all it took"? To what? That's quite ambiguous without reading your body language...

Sorry. A big smile and even a hug if I remember. At the time, I was one of the most senior professors. And she had had to delay her promotion when her mother became ill, so it was pretty special.

+1: Doing your job is expected, excelling merits congratulations.

@Buffy Britain is pretty much the origin for dramatic understatement, especially northern England.  As Americans might remember from the film Babe (or the original book The Sheep-pig), the highest compliment the farmer pays the pig is "That'll do".  We also have a popular trope of translating what English people say (for example, "That could have gone better") with what it actually means ("It was a disastrous failure and all my dreams are crushed").

@user2768 With scientists, excellence is expected. ;-)

I can't help it: reading this answer, my internal voice morphs into Ron Swanson's.

@CaptainEmacs Excelling was the wrong choice of word: What's the word for the next level? ;-)

@user2768 "Feynman mode"? I know such people. It's fascinating to see them in operation. They are not just better than oneself, or even multiply so. They are a different species.

@CaptainEmacs Feynman mode: +1 ;-) There must be some middle-ground. A top academic title, for instance. Something beyond the reaches of most. Then there's Feynman mode.

"What you need the felicitations for?" The other answers and comments give an answer to this

@user111388 I am asking OP, not the responders. Or rather, I suggest the OP should ask themselves. And, even if they do, I have an answer for that ("if you need external [motivation]..."). Note that for myself, I believe I am quite generous with complimenting colleagues, but I feel that it is beneficial to wean oneself off of requiring praise oneself. My response is not about OP congratulating others, but questioning the need for such compliments for themselves.

Who is likely to congratulate you?
Close friends
Romantic partners
Family members
Crawlers who want something from you
Suitors who want to get to know you by using flattery
Generous people who are just like that naturally
People who think it is the right thing to do
Con artists (watch your wallet)
Admirers/fans if you are famous
Sycophants if you are powerful

The rest of us are so worried about our own careers/relationships/health/utility bills that we hardly notice the successes or failures of others. We may even be envious of others' good fortune.
Once you make a few real friends in the research community, stick with them and value them.

"Once you make a few real friends in the research community, stick with them and value them."
I perfectly agree, but check the other side of the medal: in research there are tons of people who stick only with their friend, and often the behavior towards the "non-friends" is more gang-oriented than empathic behavior. Example: a group of friends publishes 2 paper per years "per capita", working 80h/week (no foul play, they do honest work, not like they are doing copies of similar papers). Someone working 40h/week, producing 1 paper/year, will be defined by them "a slacker"...

@EarlGrey - Yes, thanks for that. I didn't mean to form a clique. I meant don't expect praise or congratulations from everyone around you. If support and congratulation is something that you need, then get it from friends. Don't expect it from everyone.

This is a common issue in academia, which I've discussed with numerous colleagues.
The answers that suggest you develop your own self-esteem are, bluntly, wrong. This subject has been studied extensively by management and productivity experts, who have found that celebrating small wins increases productivity, and is especially important in research and innovation. Here's a good summary in the Harvard Business Review.
Unfortunately, there are systematic reasons why academics rarely congratulate each other:

Research achievements are stretched out in time. Paper acceptances often come in on random Wednesdays months after submission, when you're already focused on something else. It's harder to celebrate when you don't get a break from work to do it.
Most research achievements are individual. The big milestones that will make your career, like a best paper award, probably won't even show up on your team-mates' CVs. It's harder for them to drop everything for to celebrate something that doesn't directly affect them.
Academia is a competitive culture. Sometimes, your achievements may hurt your peers. In some fields, there are more PhD students and post-docs in a single university than there are faculty job openings in the world. It's really hard for people to celebrate your success when they're worried about their own scientific survival. In some institutions this competitiveness gets deeply ingrained and is perpetuated by established researchers.

With that said, you can still try to change the cultivate the habit of celebrating small successes.
To avoid the problems above, start with a group of people who either collaborate closely, or at least don't have to compete with one another. Find a meeting time when everyone is relaxed and open-minded. Tell them you'd like to try an experiment to make the group happier. Cite the literature (there's lots!) on the productivity benefits of celebrating small wins.
It might help if you make a systematic plan for when and how to celebrate, e.g. "If any of us gets a paper acceptance, award, or job offer during the week, we all go out for lunch on Friday", or, "Once a month, we set aside a group meeting (with cookies) to share the things we want to work on and the things we're proud of." There are some great options in other answers as well. If you want to change the culture, be the person who organizes the lunches and brings the cookies; eventually others will follow.
If you can't get your research group on board, the next best thing is to celebrate outside of work with friends or family. Take all the little milestones - the paper reviews handled, the applications submitted, the experiments that ran just right - and leave work early, get a fancy dinner, and mark your own success.

Great answer--I agree. The problem in academia is often that your closest colleagues can be your biggest competitors--you're applying for the same grants, promotions, etc, and unlike other industries, there's pretty only much a single career route for everyone to pass through to be considered successful in academia, and the number of positions available is not growing.

Good answer.  Moral of the story: it starts with you.  I do take my students out to lunch when they have their first paper accepted.  Also, I've in heard in some labs, students get together to burn (literally) their rejected papers.

@Prof.SantaClaus in my lab, we had a "Wall of Shame" where we posted all of our rejection letters. It was very cathartic - I highlighted all the passive-aggressive parts of my letters in bright pink, and for a while took great pride in having been rejected from both the smallest ($300) and largest ($1.2M) amounts of money on the wall. Took a lot of the sting out of the rejection.

@Blizzard l like the idea!  group therapy :)

The trick is to have a high self-esteem, that way you don't have to rely on validation from others.

And how is a person supposed to build their self-esteem if their colleagues don't take the time to celebrate their achievements at work? It's pretty easy to feel worthless when everyone around you acts as if you are.

You build self esteem by doing esteem-able things. If you feel you deserve congratulations for something, then you certainly feel it is esteem-able. You seem you have a misconception that self-esteem is rooted in what you believe others think about you. That is not the case.

The trick is not to care what other people think.
This is a good answer.
It will not be a popular answer.
But it is the truth.
Build your own sense of self worth.
Do not run around begging for the scraps that fall from the tables of others. It is not nourishing. It is childish behaviour.

@astronat Self-esteem comes from within. Self-esteem that needs to be maintained constantly through external support is not self-esteem. That's an emotional crutch. "It's pretty easy to feel worthless when everyone around you acts as if you are." Nonsense. Since when is neutral treatment the same as someone putting you down? That would only occur if your default thought process was that you were already worthless to begin with (aka having low self-esteem.).

@Pi "This is a good answer. It will not be a popular answer. But it is the truth." Which demonstrates the point it's making rather nicely.

You are working in a group with a cultural problem.
The best things you can do is to do it better than them, which means to actually congratulate others for their achievements honestly. Be happy for others if they do progress and reach their goals.

Precisely practice common courtesy and see the reactions, you'd be surprised of how much it can tell you of the people and environment


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Spot a possible improvement when reviewing a paper
In reviewing a paper I notice that the result presented there can be improved. However, the improvement may not be significant enough to appear in a good journal. Therefore, to me the best situation would be to have the authors' permission and to join the paper under review.
I would like to be advised of what I may do. I think I may write to the editor, and I would especially like to know how to ask politely. Would anyone have similar experience?
Edit: First of all thanks a lot for all suggestions! I just forgot to mention that my report was already sent one month ago. Would there be something extra I should take care of?
Edit 2: Again, many thanks to you guys! Actually contacting the authors is never an option in my mind. My options are only: (i) tell the editor (not recommending myself as a coauthor); (ii) write my own note.
Here note means a short paper, since my new short proof may be of ten lines (the original proof is three pages), that's the reason I would like to consult you guys, and to see if there is a third option.
At the moment, I prefer to do the first option, and I am thinking of whether in the email to editor I should include my new proof, or just say "I may further provide the details". How do you guys think?

Especially with anonymous peer review, "muscling your way in" to an authorship would seem very unusual to me, especially since from your position as a reviewer you have some leverage over the authors. It might be better to just suggest the improvement in your review, and leave it up to the authors whether they want to act on it.

@ObscureOwl That's true, and that's why I hesitate.

Highly related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/160761/what-to-do-when-i-can-prove-a-conjecture-of-a-paper-im-peer-reviewing/

Worth asking yourself how you would view it if an anonymous reviewer requested co-authorship of one of your papers and would only disclose some helpful contribution if you agreed?  I suspect most would be rather happier if the reviewer simply passed on a helpful suggestion that improved the paper.  In my career I have greatly benefited from helpful reviewers (including directions for improved proofs), so I try to be helpful when I can to "pay it forward".

Contacting the authors directly is a terrible idea. Don't go there. Contacting the editor with a question or request is fine. If you contact the authors directly and they interpret it as a form of poaching and complain to the editor, you may lose the opportunity to review in the future.
But the "best" option isn't to join the paper. It is to give your best review, pointing out what you think has been missed and asking for major revisions if that is what it would take.
Tell the editor that you would be willing to work with them on the improvement with permission and await what happens. You may not get a co-authorship (I doubt you will) and your advice might even be attributed to the anonymous reviewer, but that is pretty natural.
You will have contributed to the advancement of the art.

+1 It's very bad form to do so and nearing academic misconduct, as a reviewer wields an inordinate amount of power. @ObscureOwl has called it "muscling your way in" and I couldn't put it better myself.

Q: When I spot a possible improvement while reviewing, can I suggest to join the paper as a co-author?
NO. This would be unethical and unprofessional. Buffy's answer provides guidance for your best course of action: go through the editor and suggest improvements.
However, a comment made by the OP motivated me to provide an additional answer on why this is bad idea:

Thanks GEdgar! My field is math as well, the paper is written by 2 authors. I should confess that I really need publication, and I am really afraid if I were put in the acknowledgment after sharing. Therefore I am struggling whether I should write to the editor or just write a note by myself. Would you have any suggestion?

Contacting the authors to be added because you really need publication is a horrible idea because

You would be violating the blind system of review most journals use.
As a reviewer, you are in a position of power (albeit not much power) and your suggestion or request for addition as a co-author would not be one as a peer. However, another answer noted situations where   the poster has been invited to be a co-author after suggesting ideas. But, in that case the the reviewer suggested ideas and other people though the reviewer should be a co-author.
If you do this, you may soon find yourself with a bad reputation in your subfield.

It sounds like you're approaching the review process from the wrong angle and are looking for ways to contribute to the results of a paper.
Remember that every single paper ever published could have been better! Your main job as a reviewer is to judge the merits of the paper as is. Additionally, you should/can make suggestions as to how the paper could be improved. But these are expected to be helpful suggestions around the edges that would not warrant authorship. Unless the situation is extremely unusual, it is inappropriate for you to suggest new experiments that you could perform or new results that you could derive and subsequently suggest yourself as a co-author.
This is a social norm in science for which there are several reasons. Yes, there are some aspects in which science could be improved by following a different norm (e.g. this post can be improved by someone else who will become a co-autor!), but this is the currently accepted norm.
(Truly exceptional circumstances in which this norm can be violated is if you have the missing piece in an urgent and important problem that would change the field if included in the paper. Say, the whole paper is about an extremely important conjecture and you happen to have thought of a proof of it during your review. Or you have the missing experimental evidence that is the key to show that this drug is not just a reasonably good candidate to work against SARS-CoV-2 but in fact almost proven to work! Then you may contact the editor (but not the authors) with your suggestion. Simply having an idea for an incremental improvement is not enough to offset this strong social norm.)

In my opinion if the improvement won't be significant as stand-alone work you should disclose it to the authors within your review.
If it is a real substantial improvement you can recommend - from your referee point of view - that it must be included.
You will likely be acknowledged (anonymousy, of course).
I do not think acceptance is under discussion anymore independent of the fact that the authors comply or not.
Conversely, if you have something publishable at hands, wait a bit then go on your own.

As you describe the situation all you should do is to mention in your report that Theorem X can be improved to obtain Theorem X'.
But one can imagine other scenarios. One of the celebrated mathematics papers of the last century, published by two authors H & H', originated  - according to H' - as follows.  Author H' submitted a paper; it was sent to referee H who had in his filing cabinet an unpublished manuscript overlapping by about half the material; the editors intervened, the paper was withdrawn, and finally H & H' published a paper developing and expanding the union of the drafts.

I assume here that by improvement you meant something like a way to prove a more general case of a theorem presented or a suggestion for a corollary.
As a referee your job is to judge the quality of the paper as it is presented to you. You are not expected to suggest additions or improvements to the results presented in the paper. After all, all research is incomplete by its very nature.
So what are your options?
I would definitely not contact the author(s) directly. This is a breach of an implied agreement of secrecy between you and the editor. Most journals explicitly require that all communication should go through the editorial office.
I would also not propose myself as a coauthor if I was in your situation. There are a few reasons for that:

There is arguably some randomness involved in you getting the draft for review, so it is a bit unfair.
You put the editor in a tough position of having to mediate a request of coauthorship between you and the author(s) of the paper.
It is, after all, their paper with their ideas and execution. If, by your own admission, the result that you want to add is not worth a standalone publication, perhaps is unfair that you share an equal amount of credit by cosigning the paper with them.
If the author(s) refuse to include you then the situation would become exceptionally unpleasant because now they know your unpublished idea and you run the risk of getting scooped.

One way is to propose the addition in the report and accept to be thanked as an anonymous referee. However, keep in mind you cannot ethically reject the paper if they refuse to do  it because you are not asking them to fix something but rather to add something.
If you are happy with being acknowledged, but you would like to be acknowledged by name, you can give the editor permission to disclose your name to the author(s). Then the editor will decide whether it's ok or not.
The final option is to type the theorem yourself (citing that paper) and to find a less prestigious journal on which you can publish. I understand that publishing as a preprint-only is not an option for you at the moment, but in principle one might also do that.

What field is this?  Would the paper go from 10 authors to 11?  Or would it be 1 to 2?
My experience is in mathematics, where papers often have 1 author.  I have seen in such papers something like: Thanks to an anonymous referee for the following proof.
Another case involving me.  A paper by 3 statisticians, acknowledging me for providing a proof.  The journal asked them to add me as author, so in the published paper I am one of 4 authors.

Thanks GEdgar! My field is math as well, the paper is written by 2 authors. I should confess that I really need publication, and I am really afraid if I were put in the acknowledgment after sharing. Therefore I am struggling whether I should write to the editor or just write a note by myself. Would you have any suggestion?

@Salomo Don't do it. If you need a publication, write your own. The cases where I have seen such things done are considered outright misconduct; in one case, the perpetrator was a very powerful academic, so nobody touched them; but in principle they should have. In an other case, the perpetrator was effectively ostracized. Don't ride on others work. If they are graciously giving you coauthorship, that's fine.


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MSCA Fellowship in Italy: salary and position
What contract are MSCA fellows hired with in Italy?
I've read somewhere that after the fellowship you are then most likely hired with a Rtda position. I've also read however that these Rtda positions do not exist any longer in favour of Rtt. Does someone know the status on this?

Doesn't the fellowship imply you are paid through the fellowship, from some EU funding? The university in Italy is only hosting you, not hiring you.

I might be wrong but I am not sure it works like this. They way I understand this is that the University establishes a grant agreement and then a contract is established between the university and the researcher. An implicit reference to this appears here: https://www.uniroma1.it/sites/default/files/09_FACSIMILE_CONTRATTO_MARIE_CURIE.rtf
and most importantly here https://www.unive.it/pag/12206 where an explicit amount for research contributions is stated.

Here is another reference to how the grant is handled by a major italian university: https://www2.uniroma1.it/senatoaccademico/verbali/10.2_08_11_2022.pdf


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Can I validate the results of my package with that of any tutorial or workshop?
I have developed a software package for the analysis of genomic data, in which, I have implemented a variety of functions like normalization, clustering etc (from already available tools i.e., clubbed them together) in one software package with a different working framework.
I am now trying to validate the result produced, after analysis of some dataset, using my developed/proposed software tool.
What is the best way to validate/verify these results? and If I am replicating the results of an online tutorial, does that qualify to be called a valid verification?

Frankly, I am too stupid to understand this question.

I am sorry for the ambiguity in my question. I have reframed it and I hope it makes sense now.

I would expect that the data used in an online tutorial was chosen to enable lessons to be taught. As such, it might be biased in various ways. In that case, your results probably wouldn't be valid. It is the quality of the data, not its source that is important.

I'm on the fence about close voting as domain-specific, but I don't think the fact that this is genetics software matters very much. I'm not going to CV for now, but  maybe genericizing the Q might help you avoid closure.

You want to know if your software works correctly. One way to do that is to compare the results from your software with "known to be true" results. This begs the question: how do I get these magical "known to be true" results, and you think maybe from an online tutorial. This depends on the quality and trustworthiness of that tutorial, and the variance is huge. So in general, the answer is no, no, no, no, run away, don't look back, forget about it, just don't do it (you get the point by now). However, there may be very trustworthy tutorials out there where this might work. But if you know that is the case, then that is because you can derive and prove the results presented in the tutorial yourself, so you don't need the tutorial anymore. So that is a bit of a catch 22.
In general "known to be true" results are special cases with a known answer. In addition (but more dangerous) you can compare your results with results from trusted and known to be high quality software. Problem is that even high quality software is still written by humans and humans do make errors. Those errors aren't random. You may well be replicating each other's bugs...
I assume you have broken up the problem in lots and lots of sub-routines. (if that is not the case, then that is something you need to fix) A good place to start is to create unit tests for each and every sub-routine.

Those benchmark "known to be true" results can be found from papers and standard textbooks too, right?

+1 just for being fun to read. But also accurate.

@justauser papers and textbooks suffer from the same problems as using trusted and high quality software. In fact, those papers and textbooks probably used that that high quality software to get their results.

Thanks for you answer.

Thanks for your answer. Yes, as mentioned, I am reproducing the modules of the different software in one. I guess, it should be OK to use the analytical results of a given dataset in those software(which I have replicated), to verify the results obtained from my software. And the tutorials which I am talking about are trustworthy as they are the "how to use vignettes" of the software I am reproducing.

That does not sound anywhere near good enough for your purpose. This way you are pretty much guaranteed to reproduce the bugs in the other software. You need real known to be true results, results where there is hard analytical proof that it is true.

@MaartenBuis Sometimes it's essentially not possible. I've been in the exact same situation as OP and aside from a few results on well-known datasets (and possibly reproducing bugs in other software!) you're kind of on your own. If there are discrepancies, it is possible they are due to bugs in the original software; in this case it could sometimes mean worldwide research on the topic for some 20 years or so. All you can do is "independent implementation" and run tests on synthetic data sets in some cases where the analytical answer is clear. Even then it can be hard (think deep learning).


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Manuscript status changed from "Under review" to "Required reviews completed" and again to "Under review"
I submitted a paper to a journal where the status changes from "Under review" to "Required reviews completed". The status "Required reviews completed" was there for 2 days. Now, again it is showing "Under review". What could this mean?

How can anyone answer? We can't know the internals of a reviewing system (beyond explaining the reviewing process, which is explained elsewhere on this site), for instance, it could mean the editor made a mistake, asked for help, and it was fixed after two days, or it may have been under review, reviews submitted, and the editor requesting a further review, or ...

In the typical workflow (see linked question), your situation is covered by the situation where the editor decides that more reviews are required (backwards arrow from editor decision to peer review).

Sometimes a reviewer suggests to add one more reviewer. For instance I do if I discover an unexpected section that I can't really judge because out of my competence.

As @user2768 points out in the question's comment section, we can't know the internals of a reviewing system. However, I tried here to provide a possible explanation for this change from "required reviews completed" to "under review".
"Required reviews completed": This is a status which shows up when a minimal number of reviews for an article is received. For instance, some journals have required the minimum number of reviews being set to 2. So, when the journal office receives 2 reviews from the reviewers, the status is displayed. Elsevier provides this reference.
Note that the reviews sometimes be lousy and not detailed, and sometimes very conflicting reviews (e.g. review comments by two different reviewers are completely opposite to each other). In this case, the (associate) editor has a hard time making a decision. A possible way to resolve this conflict is to get another review, and therefore (s)he could send the article to a third reviewer. Then, the status changes to "under review" again.
Don't worry about all these. These things are pretty normal in peer-review system.

Thanks. Is it ok to ask the editor on that ?

It's too early, I think. Well, it depends on field. @RIchardWilliams


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Obtain CiteScore rank
Is possible to obtain the information about the CiteScore rank for a journal?
I have seen in "Elsevier Developers" that there are different APIs to obtain the SJR and SNIP metrics, but nothing about CiteScore rank and I need to obtain the percentile in a given year.

What do you want to do with that?

I have a set of articles published in different journals indexed by Scopus and Scimago. So I need to take the quartiles in which those journals have been classified over the years, in order to know the classification that the articles will have.
So I wanted to know if it was possible to get the quartiles (percentiles in the case of scopus) through an API. Since due to the large volume of information it is very tedious to do it manually

Scopus gives a list here. Is it what you are interested in:
https://journalmetrics.scopus.com/


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Plagiarism in journals
I'm looking for some advice. In the course of my research on a particular area, I came across 2 papers on the same subject. One was written in 2010;  the other in 2015. Both are published in equally reputable journals, but on different continents. The three authors are all from the same continent, but not same country.
The 2015 paper is larger, and more expansive on the subject, when compared against the 2010 paper. However it has major failings in terms of bibliography (basically non-existant). After reading through both papers a number of times, to get a feel for them, I started to notice something. The 2015 paper has lifted entire tracts from The earlier paper, including citations that are not in their bibliography. The lifted pieces are not mentioned as direct quotes, and the original author is not mentioned in the bibliography.
This seems like a prima fascia and case of academic plagiarism? Any advice on what, if anything, I should do?

An interesting one, although I wouldn't jump straight to plagiarism.
Sometimes, if the authors are all in the same research group/university/project (this could easily be across countries) they'll use bits of colleagues work with less rigorous citing than they would normally. This is especially the case if the first paper was mostly just a positioning or introductory piece.
It's not a great thing to do, but I've seen it happen on a number of occasions. However, I'd definitely get in contact with the journal of the second paper, and then if you don't hear anything constructive back then get in contact with the journal of the first paper. Definitely don't contact the authors directly unless you don't hear anything from either journal - if that's the case, get in contact with the authors of the first paper.