text:
Do publishers simply waive their exclusive rights without any resistance?
Assumption based upon my experience from CS: Typically, the business model of academic publishers is to archive and disseminate papers whose authors have transferred exclusive publication rights to the publisher. Sometimes, there are limited provisions such as authors being allowed to host a copy on their personal website. In general, though, the revenue of publishers is based upon providing paid access to the papers.
This is reflected by the choice authors often face upon publication:

Transfer exclusive publication rights of the paper, pay nothing.
Retain publication rights so as to provide open access to the paper, pay a (usually substantial) fee1.

Now, the fee in the latter case is obviously the way publishers make up for their loss in revenue by not being able to restrict access to the paper to paying subscribers. This is discussed e.g. here and here.
Point of this question: Recently, the University of California has announced a "Presidential Open Access Policy" (other announcement, other article). In short, it sounds like all university employees are asked to transfer rights to their papers to the university prior to transferring rights to any commercial publisher. Furthermore, the announcements make it sound as if the consequence were that publishers simply do not receive exclusive publication rights and the university provides open access to the papers in addition to the publishers, all else apparently equal.
Now, to me, this raises a huge question mark and some speculation. In one question, I am asking here: How does this actually work? But to make things clearer and more explicit, I'm going to list the various facets of this big question one by one:

To my knowledge, universities weren't the obstacle so far when it came to publishing as open access. Publishers were, because they wanted exclusive rights or a substantial fee, as described above. How is it that a university policy can change this?
Do publishers readily provide a modified license transfer agreement because of such a policy? One that does not insist on exclusive rights? Otherwise, granting rights to the university first, and then signing an exclusive copyright transfer agreement sounds like the author is on their way to committing copyright infringement (or at least a breach of contract) themselves, rather than a witty way around the publishers' restrictions.
Is this actually a legal loophole that allows authors to circumvent the publishers' wishes? If so, it would seem quite an obvious loophole ("Don't want to transfer exclusive rights? Easy. Just grant someone else rights before."); why isn't everyone doing it? Is the University of California administration just the first to have the idea for some reason?
Do publishers just comply with this because the University of California is a comparably "big player" (as the press release states, "the UC system is responsible for over 2% of the world’s total research publications")? Even if so, what do publishers gain from complying? One might say they're not getting less, they're getting absolutely nothing.

And even if so, how would UC threaten them? Would they threaten to use only their in-house publisher, which offers free open access hosting in accordance with the policy?

Does the in-house publisher actually offer free open access hosting? It seems like UC Press relies on its sales just like commercial publishers.

If so, would the in-house publisher offer that hosting also to non-UC employees? Otherwise, it would seem unlikely that any journal or conference would switch to that in-house publisher, hence such a boycot would amount to banning oneself from participating in research for at least some months (if not years), until the boycot has an effect.

Is the University of California simply testing its limits here, as a part of an ongoing legal battle of varying degrees of copyright enforcement by publishers and varying degrees of copyright infringement by authors and their institutions?
Does the policy actually mean that all university departments are obliged to pay the open access publication fee to the publishers (i.e. requests by employees to get reimbursed for such a fee cannot be dismissed)? I was told (and hence cannot provide an accessible reference) for wealthy universities like the University of California, the open access publication fees in the lower thousands of dollars per paper might be negligible (?)

The latter speculation might not apply completely. Other wealthy universities are having issues to pay for subscriptions, and in numbers, these issues seem to be well in a range where one might get by paying all those open access fees, as well. But ... is this maybe a bureaucracy thing? Library subscriptions have to be paid from some (relatively limited) permanent account, whereas open access fees would apply upon publication and can thus be paid from (possibly much more generous) research grants?

Or of course: Am I missing anything crucial about the announcement?

1: For instance, ACM charges (for non-members) USD 900 per conference paper and USD 1,700 per journal paper.

Harvard and MIT have been dong this for years. Even the UC mandate is already years old; the recent announcement just expands the policy from faculty to all researchers.

@JeffE: All right then, how does it work? Do publishers simply comply, and if so, why isn't everyone doing it? Feel free to add an answer if you have any information on this, please.

An institution has more weight than an individual. "Non-exclusive access or I submit my papers elsewhere" results in "don't let the door hit you on the way out", but "non-exclusive access, or NONE of the researchers at our institution will submit papers to you" -- depending on the university may carry a bit more weight. (not every university can get away with this, but UC, MIT, and Harvard can.)

@LindaJeanne: That sounds possible, but I'd imagine such a procedure takes some time to have an effect. Wouldn't this, at least for some fields, mean that UC essentially bans its researchers from submitting to any of the better venues in the field for one or two years, until publishers comply? Would the careers of the respective researchers survive this, and would they even risk it? (Of course, this is speaking from the point of view of a field more or less all of whose better venues are firmly in the hands of at most four publishers.)

@LindaJeanne: Also, note how this is related to the 4th item in my question. If all of the researchers at institution X submit all of their papers in a way so they do not generate any revenue for the publisher, the publisher will not mind if none of the researchers at institution X will submit papers to that publisher. Of course, that disregards revenue from merely looking at papers (do those publishers display paid ads, for instance?), and there might also be a minuscule effect of mentioning the publisher name in citations, but this does not sound like long-term plan for the publisher.

@O.R.Mapper It seems that excluding the entire UC system, all of MIT, or all of Harvard might hurt a journal's status in the long run; it would certainly  result in bad publicity. While there is little short-term benefit to the publishers for complying, a think it's wise from a long-term point of view, to prevent diminishing relevance. (If you exclude one or two of the top/most-cited researchers in field X, your journal related to field X will suffer lost reputation as a result).  Note this is based on my not-remotely-an-expert understanding of the situation, hence comment rather than answer.

AFAIK France has a similar system, for publicly funded research: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/

@FábioDias: So, how do they do it? How do they convince publishers not to complain about a lack of exclusive dissemination rights? Note that the welcome page says: "Le dépôt doit être effectué (...) dans le respect de la politique des éditeurs", which appears to say that restrictions imposed by the publisher have a priority over the open access ambitions by HAL.

In many physics journals the editors themselves explicitly encourage you to post your papers on the ArXiv, usually at some point during the review process, usually when there are only minor revisions left. I imagine journals are still the main stop to acquire papers, and universities will keep pay for subscriptions.

@O.R.Mapper , To be totally honest, I don't know the specifics. All I know is that I was required to upload my thesis and the works I did while working over/in/with CNRS.... It is pretty handy in some fields that have a lot of french researchers, easy access guaranteed...

@FábioDias: Did you happen to also publish any of these works you uploaded with publishers that usually require exclusive rights, or that publish as open access only with a fee? While not providing an ultimate answer here, it might give us interesting insights into how this kind of arrangement can work.

@O.R.Mapper I published stuff in a conference with springer proceedings and another in LNCS... I had to sign waivers, I think. Easier to consider my advisor, who publishes a lot, and every single entry has a 'hal number' field: http://www.laurentnajman.org/index.php?page=publications

To my knowledge, universities weren't the obstacle so far when it came to publishing as open access. Publishers were, because they wanted exclusive rights or a substantial fee, as described above. How is it that a university policy can change this?

Many publishers already allow self-archiving, partly as a result of pressure from authors who want to freely allow others to access their research. University open access policies and open access policies of funding agencies (like the NIH) are another way to exert pressure on publishers to allow self-archiving, deposit in institutional repositories, and other forms of open access.

Do publishers readily provide a modified license transfer agreement because of such a policy?

Some do. From the Columbia FAQ:

For example, the Columbia Libraries have identified the top 20 journals in which articles by faculty and staff at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have appeared most often in recent years. Of those 20 journals, 19 of them include in their standard agreement a provision allowing deposit of some version of the article with a university repository.

For publishers whose copyright transfer agreement conflicts with the institution's policy, authors may include an addendum with their signed copyright agreement.
If a publisher is unwilling to accept the OA terms, authors can opt out of the institutional policy. According to Oregon State University:

A small number of publishers require that authors at institutions with open access policies receive a waiver from the policy. The following publishers have informed the library that they require a waiver: ARRS, Imprint Academic, Institute of Physics, JTE Multimedia. AAAS and Nature Publishing Group also routinely require waivers from university Open Access policies.

MIT keeps a list of publishers' responses to the policy, including whether or not authors must submit an addendum and whether or not authors must opt out of the institutional open access policy. The University of California has a list of the number of waivers requested by UC authors for various publishers between August 2013, when the UC-wide policy was announced, and August 2015.

Is this actually a legal loophole that allows authors to circumvent the publishers' wishes?

The University of California is not the first to enact an open access policy for faculty. See for example MIT open access policy, Oregon State open access policy, Duke open access policy, etc.
To the best of my knowledge, these have not yet been tested in court. However, there does seem to be a legal basis for the idea that a license granted to the university will persist even if an author later signs a conflicting copyright transfer agreement:

Section 205(e) of the Copyright Act provides that a prior nonexclusive license evidenced in a writing signed by the right holder
  prevails over a subsequent conflicting transfer of copyright ownership, so the answer appears to turn on whether permission mandates satisfy the requirements of § 205(e).

(Source: "Copyright and the Harvard Open Access Mandate", Eric Priest, Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, 2012)
It is feasible that

permission mandates satisfy the requirements of § 205(e) and establish the license’s priority over the subsequent transfer of copyright ownership largely because they fulfill the underlying purposes of § 205(e) by providing sufficient evidence and notice of the license to potential copyright transferees (typically academic publishers).

The legal rationale is beyond the scope of this answer, but can be found here.
Note that there are steps a university can take to make sure to satisfy these requirements, so that their license will be durable. For example, Harvard had all faculty sign a paper agreement to satisfy the requirements of § 205(e).

I would rather expect that granting a license to the university and transferring copyright later to a publisher would mean that the latter action is invalid, as the author has probably (?) forfeited the option to transfer copyright due to the previously granted license. (It's like selling something you do not own any more.)

Not really. As long as you hold the copyright, you can transfer it. If you grant someone a non-exclusive license, you still hold the copyright and are free to later transfer the copyright or grant an exclusive license to someone else. (An exclusive license is treated as a transfer of rights by the law.)
If you do so, the person with the non-exclusive license can still use it under the terms of that license (assuming a non-revocable license). The new copyright holder or person with the exclusive license can enforce its rights and prevent anyone except for the non-exclusive license holder from infringing.
You cannot, however, transfer copyright (or exclusive license) twice. That would be equivalent to selling something you don't own anymore.
This is just like the way in which an author can grant arXiv a non-exclusive license to distribute, and still transfer the copyright to a journal later. From the arXiv license FAQ:

However, granting rights for arXiv to distribute an article does not preclude later copyright assignment. Authors are thus free to publish submissions that already appear on arXiv. Authors may wish to inform the journal publisher that a prior non-exclusive license exists before transferring copyright or granting a publication license.

(Of course, a publisher is free to decide as a matter of policy that they're not interested in publishing content that has previously been licensed to someone else, in which case an author at an institution with an OA policy may take advantage of the waiver mentioned above.)

Does the policy actually mean that all university departments are obliged to pay the open access publication fee to the publishers

No. The author (or author's institution) does not pay open access fees to the publisher. The publisher is not making the article available as an open access article.
The University of California FAQ clarifies:

My publisher charges $____ for open access. Do I have to pay that to comply with UC’s OA policies?
No. The publisher charges those fees to fund open access publication of your article at the journal’s website, but there are two ways to make scholarship open: through publisher-hosted OA (which sometimes involves fees) and through self-archiving by an author. UC’s OA policies use the latter route, by reserving rights for authors to include the author’s version of their articles in an open access repository like eScholarship. There is no fee associated with this self-archiving function. Authors may choose to pursue paid, publisher-hosted OA for their own reasons, but that is not required or suggested by the UC OA policies.

What do publishers gain from complying? One might say they're not getting less, they're getting absolutely nothing.

It's not entirely clear yet what the effect of green OA is on publisher revenue. There is some evidence that the number of downloads of an article from the publisher's site is reduced, but no evidence of cancelled subscriptions.  Some journals have found that certain kinds of OA policies (e.g. OA after a short embargo) increases subscriptions and submissions. You can find more information here.

Great answer, +1 for now; I'll wait a bit before accepting in case other answers will still arrive. One point: "there does seem to be a legal basis for the idea that a license granted to the university will persist even if an author later signs a conflicting copyright transfer agreement" - I had no doubts about that; I would rather expect that granting a license to the university and transferring copyright later to a publisher would mean that the latter action is invalid, as the author has probably (?) forfeited the option to transfer copyright due to the previously granted license. (It's ...

... like selling something you do not own any more.)

@O.R.Mapper not really. See my edit.

Thank you for pointing out the FAQ entry. As you write, however, it goes only as far as saying "The publisher is not making the article available as an open access article." This is undisputed, but reading between the lines, it always seemed clear to me that the OA publishing fee is not a service fee for hosting a PDF file of a few KB, but a reimbursement to the publisher for their losses from foregoing exclusive publishing rights. Oddly, this issue does not seem to be mentioned at all in the UC FAQ. Furthermore, the next FAQ item speaks about "rare contract terms (...) that you have not ...

... previously licensed any rights in your article to anyone besides your publisher", which I find even weirder. In my (possibly field-specific, which may well be the reason for my confusion about this policy) experience, virtually all copyright agreements I have ever signed grant exclusive publication rights to publishers. There are a few provisions such as for hosting the file (with an embedded pointer to the publisher's version!) on one's personal website, but then again, we have always done so where it was allowed by publishers, without requiring a policy from our institution.

The explanations on "Section 205(e) of the Copyright Act" may provide a (probably U.S.-specific, in this case) explanation, however, which is why I will accept this answer for now.

I have posted a follow-up question to learn about the actual ramifications of Section 205(e) of the Copyright Act. At least temporarily, I have unaccepted this answer for the time being, as the question whether §205(e) of the Copyright Act could possibly be effective (without publishers reacting to it) is disputed.

I will quote from the "Senate" policy, which now extends to non-faculty.

Each Faculty member grants to the University of California a
  nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all
  rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly
  articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, for
  the purpose of making their articles widely and freely available in an
  open access repository. Any other systematic uses of the licensed
  articles by the University of California must be approved by the
  Academic Senate. This policy does not transfer copyright ownership,
  which remains with Faculty authors under existing University of
  California policy.

They do not transfer rights to the university, they simply allow the university to distribute copies for free (and only for free). This effectively forces all academic articles to be openly accessible. I expect that as a consequence of this policy, and as such policies spread, publishers will have to modify their copyright policies and drop the unconditional transfer of rights (which a number have done). In disciplines other than CS, licensing rather than transfer may be more common.


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Uncertainty about following academic career
I recently got my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (2015), and now I am doing a postdoc in Computer Science at a top tier university. I have a decent number of publications (>12) in respectable journals in my field, and an h-index of 5, some awards, travel grants, and so on. While I know numbers don't do justice to a person, unfortunately that's how you rate academics (which I think is part of the problem).
Despite the above, I feel increasingly lost, and not sure whether I want to pursue an academic career. I have been moving around in the world a lot, and combined with the delayed gratification of research, fixed-term contracts, intense competition, etc., I feel like I am burning out.
On the other hand, transitioning to industry scares me, since I have been dwelling in university laboratories for the past 10 years of my life. What if I don't like it there and want to come back? With the "publish or perish" attitude, after a few years of not publishing the doors of academia would be shut for me. Or at least that's my impression.
The result of all the above is a feeling of angst and despair, and wondering whether I have been wasting my time all these years, even though the numbers say the opposite (goddamn numbers!). Taking a break from everything and pursuing some of my hobbies for a while, on the other hand, seems like a decision that could be fruitful.

Especially in Computer Science, going to industry doesn't always mean that you have to or will stop publishing. And about connections, it's often the case that a significant number of the people attending the top conferences/workshops are from industry. Btw, your last sentence makes your post a candidate for closing, so if I were you I'd edit my post.

There are other options to your false dichotomy of academia vs industry. National labs, for example. Industrial R&D laboratories (e.g Microsoft Research). Many folks migrate between them over time, and it is not a one-way valve from academia to not-academia.

When I signed my first child up for kindergarten, a mother of four gave me some great advice I've never forgotten.  I explained that my child found it exhausting to be around people all day five days a week.  She told me to keep him at home for a day from time to time.  I said, "But how can I explain it to the school?!"  She said, tell them he's having a mental health day.  Well, it was great advice..... Dr Aparente is now going to prescribe you to take 2 - 4 weeks off.  Work out the dates with your supervisor, so as to be considerate of him or her and your other colleagues....

By the way, the way to find out if you like working in industry is ultimately to try it out.  However, you could get a preliminary idea by shadowing someone for a day or two.

Sitting on two chairs in never a good idea. (If try nevertheless, you should damn well know what you are doing.) Satisfying the industy and satisfying academic curiosity is not a task for everybody. From the experience of many of my prior colleagues, if you try to do both, you are likely to fail in publishing.
Said that, going to the industry is often a one-way ticket. More often that you would like to hear.
Sorry for discouraging.
On the other hand, if you ran out of ideas in academia, you have to go to the industry.

if you ran out of ideas in academia, you have to go to the industry I doubt that anyone has ever joined the industry because they lacked ideas. Very often what prevents people to join academia again is the prospect of a decrease in pay, benefits and relative freedom from politics.

Have you ever met someone who "ran out of ideas" and had to leave academia because of this? I can't imagine this ever happening.

When I first started my PhD, I thought as well that I would end up there and pictured myself as a future professor with lots of publications and successful academic career. But as time passed, I gradually lost my interest and started to ask myself really, what the heck am I doing here? The point is, you are not alone in this and many people feel the same. And I think you should be able to answer some questions for yourself.
First, what was the purpose of your previous research and publications? Did you do it mostly for your own joy or you were forced into a competition and wanted to be on the winners' side? In other words, what made you happier? The process of writing a paper or seeing that it is published in a high ranking journal? If you enjoy writing a paper regardless of whether it is published or not, then I would say you are on the right path. Otherwise I am afraid to say that it might be better for you to reconsider your options.
And what are you afraid of if you end up in the industry? Do you fear that you might end up doing a boring job? Then what makes a job boring? In the worst-case scenario, would it be more boring than what you are already doing? These are the questions that I think you should clearly answer for yourself, and they might be totally opinion-based.
As for myself, I ended up in the industry and totally lost my interest in the academia. Although my PI recommended me to pursue an academic job and said he would support me by all means, but I realized that this is not my thing. Now my job is not perfect, –no job is, but I like it for now. It might not be something that I would do for the rest of my life, but I think when you are out of academia, your options are far wider. If you think a job cannot fulfill your curiosity, you can always find something to do it for yourself. We are living in the internet era for God's sake.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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Is it ethical to have two (undergraduate) researchers in the same group "compete" against one another for leadership/credit of a research study?
When I was previously an undergraduate research assistant in a small lab group (seven members), there was a situation where the PI had pitched a research study idea to multiple students independently, with none of us knowing that the others had been told about the idea. The PI encouraged each one of us to go off on our own and pursue the idea, try to make some progress, and eventually come back to them with a better idea of how to approach the project (perhaps even some preliminary results).
I only found out a few weeks later that the PI had pitched the idea to multiple students when a discussion with the other students shifted towards current projects and ideas. As we talked, one student mentioned that the PI had told them about "a new idea for a research study" and that they "had devoted quite a bit of time making progress on the study." That research study happened to be the same one that I was pitched by the PI, and one that I had also spent considerable time working on recently.
The PI had told me that good work on this project could lead to a potential conference presentation and/or journal publication, and I was keen on making good progress. However, finding out that I wasn't the only person in the research group working independently on the idea made me feel like I was unfairly placed into a competition I wasn't even aware of. I could have invested plenty of time into the research project, only to discover that a colleague had already finish more than I had and, therefore, made my progress effectively worthless.
I'm curious what members of the academic community think about the ethics of this. Is it ethical to pit people in the same group against one another on a project, with the credit going to the one that finishes better and/or faster? Do the ethics of this change when the students aren't told that there are others working on this?
In this case, I happened to be an undergraduate research assistant while the other was a master’s student, but I'm wondering if this matters. At the time, we were both paid members of the lab, but I've heard about similar situations where one/both people were volunteer undergraduates working for free.
One part of me says that I was entitled the fair opportunity to work on the project knowing that I would receive due credit for any findings I made. But another part of me says that this is the nature of academia, and I should learn to thrive in situations like these.

It's possible that the PI intended to have the students "compete" against one another. It's also possible that the PI was just throwing an idea out there, didn't know which students (if any) would pursue that idea, and would later encourage the students to pool their efforts if more than one student came back and said "Hey, I'm interested in this idea you shared, here's what I have done."  (You know the PI, I don't, so you may have some idea which motivation is more likely.)

"with the credit going to the one that finishes better and/or faster?" Why do you think that will happen?

What was the outcome?  Did only 1 student work on this project in the end?  Did multiple students work on it collaboratively?  Was there an open discussion where all of the ruminations and potential approaches were pooled and compared?

Let me try with an "onion-answer", one layer at a time.

It is certainly not unethical to have several undergraduate students work on the same project. This is how most people get by, as there are simply not enough interesting and unique projects at undergraduate level that everybody can get their own. (And if there are, it would take too much time developing them.)
It is borderline unethical to set up a competition between students in your lab, dangling the prize of a conference presentation or a publication ahead of them. The focus should be on how to do good research, not how to get ahead of your colleagues - even though it is sometimes also part of research. I can see how this could be done in a somewhat fun and productive atmosphere, so I will not dismiss it off hand. But I would much rather have the students work together, than against each other.
It is blatantly unethical to have a competition among your undergraduate students without informing them, that they are in a competition, first. I assume from your post, that you have never said yes to be in such a competition, and that you in good faith assumed that your chances of getting the "prize" would be based on your performance alone, and not how it compares to the performance of other students. This is a kind of "bait and switch" strategy, also often used for job interviews, where you get a person in the door by promising them a reward - but at the end of the day there is only one reward, and many people competing.

Finally, you mention that part of the prize is also "credit". Here I want to tell you, that if any scientific work is done towards a specific publication as part of the non-winning studies, the authors of said work should be credited as co-authors. Even if they don't win the competition.

+1. Rather than a competition, I suspect the supervisor will combine (better) efforts into a single conference paper, hence, I suspect there's no prize. (I accept some lesser efforts need to be discarded, but they aren't competing anyhow.)

"there are simply not enough interesting and unique projects at undergraduate level that everybody can get their own" Nonsense.

Mostly agree, but as for item 2 - a PI, or the group, democratically, should actively encourage different student-researchers to go in different directions which aren't simply trying the same thing. And - to share findings every certain amount of time.

@AnonymousPhysicist: Look at the full sentence before you declare it nonsense. I could plausibly give all my undergraduate students a project which is a) interesting, b) unique and c) at a level where they can make progress themselves (note that any two out of three would not be a problem...), but then I would have no time to do anything else. I am happy for you that you have no problem doing all three, but looking at my colleagues, I see that I am not alone.

@nabla I did look at the full paragraph and I only declared a small part of it to be nonsense.  I suggest you edit the paragraph to be clearer.

"I could have invested plenty of time into the research project, only to discover that a colleague had already finish more than I had and, therefore, made my progress effectively worthless."This line makes me think the OP would have given up if they had known about the "competition", and had someone else made better progress. May be that was exactly what the PI wanted to avoid? Doing it this way he made sure each student independently tried their best. Also it's not clear the Professor was dangling any prize in front of the students. The OP says "potential" publication or presentation...

...with no clear criteria for what might be deemed good enough for the publication or presentation

I might actually have to applaud that professor, but only under certain circumstances. If you were in "competition" with each other for grades in some course then no, it would not be ethical. But then, I normally define competitive grading in general to be unethical. It should be possible for every student to succeed and even to get full marks in any course.
But there is nothing wrong with getting truly independent thought processes going on a research problem. You were given the opportunity to solve a, perhaps hard, problem using your own resources. There is a lot of value in that, both for yourself and for science.
Search around for information about the search for how DNA works (Double Helix). There were independent groups that attacked the problem from different angles. It was a rather extreme competition to be first.
But, I don't think the professor wanted you to sabotage one another in the search and they were correct that one or maybe several of you had the potential for publication. In fact, different approaches to the same problem can each be worthy of publication since the path to a solution is often (some fields, anyway) even more important than the final answer.
And if the professor is wise enough they will recognize that for a budding scientist the search itself is valuable even if unsuccessful.
If the professor was willing to reward everyone for their work, not just the first over the line, there there is nothing wrong with this, and much to be admired. You may want to thank them someday for that experience.

+1: My favorite answer, especially for the second and fourth paragraphs.

This answer reminds me of my advisor's advisor. He gave two students the same problem and told one "prove this" and the other one "find a counterexample". The latter student won, the first had to start a new phd project after one year.

@user111388, even that isn't necessarily bad. Both were after the truth. Either could have been the one to find the counterexample, or a proof, in case it were true. Presumably the advisor didn't already know the answer. The game wasn't rigged.

@Buffy: I don't say the game was rigged. But as my advisor said, both students were really mad (what I understand) at the advisor.

@user111388, and in the case under discussion the instructions to the various students seems to have been the same, not contradictory. In math we feel good when we find the truth.

Having two undergraduate students compete against each other is probably not unethical, but usually is a bad idea.
Duplicate research is wasteful, and may be unethical.  For students, the purpose of duplicate work might be duplicate training, which is not unethical.  A supervisor might assume that undergraduates are unlikely to complete a project, in which case duplicate effort is potentially appropriate.
Assuming that duplicate effort was somehow justified, framing that duplication as a competition instead of a collaboration is inappropriate.  The goal of research is to create knowledge, not to create winners.
Assigning the same project to multiple people without telling them is also obnoxious.  But obnoxious does not imply unethical.

I would say it's unpleasant, but legitimate if the competition is open. Not making it open is more than obnoxious. It is seriously undermining trust, even if we ignore the ethics. Some open competition may be good for motivation. Implicit competition can be toxic. Again, I do not know whether ethical categories are applicable here, unless it's the Golden Rule.

+1. Although duplicate research is wasteful, parallel research, producing different results (possibly due to careful supervision) is not wasterful.

@user2768, and students learning how to do research isn't "wasteful" in any sense.

"Competitions" for things exist all over the place to "spur innovation" ... though this is a bit different still there could be some gains, if also some losses, I'd imagine...

@Buffy - i think we need to distinugish between two students doing the same project as part of their education, and two employees of a research lab being put into competition. I regularly give several undergrads the same dissertation project. That is not the same as setting up two people in my lab as working against each other. If I ws going to have two people in the lab on the same project, they would work together, not against each other.

@IanSudbery, Why do you assume they are working "against each other"? No one has suggested sabotage. Again, if the professor is encouraging independent thought and will reward the work, I'm clapping. For undergraduates, almost any research experience is valuable. It is difficult to bring it to completion in any case due to time restrictions. But, as I said, I'm against competitive grading in all of its forms.

@Buffy One could make the argument that not telling the students they are competing might prevent sabotage.  After all, you can't sabotage your rivals if you don't even know you're competing.  (Just playing devil's advocate here.  I do not personally support this sort of thing, but I could see how some could make a case for it.)

I'd say that having students compete against each in a winner take all situation is highly unethical. Whether this is the case is definitely questionable, but what the OP seems to be concerned about.

It's not a good sign when the only justification you can think of is that it's somewhat like the status quo. Most people use the status quo as justification because they're in a position to profit, not because it's actually right. The rest do so because they are resigned to their plight.
It's a bad sign when the status quo has already been challenged. An often criticized factor in the replication crisis is how only the "successful" in a world of bitter competition are rewarded or acknowledged.
It's an especially bad sign when there is deception, even if only of omission. With the most open mind possible, I could imagine that this competition was intended to foster independence and ambition, and that in the end, all are given equal opportunity to be acknowledged, whether through your own papers, coauthorship, or sharing the presentation. I can't imagine there being a good reason for not saying so if that were so.

I personally think it is unethical to have multiple people working in a single team against each other - Science is a team endevour.
Note, I don't think having two people within a reserach team compeating on the same project is the same thing as giving two undergraduate students the same project for their dissertation or as part of an assessed module - in that case both students can get good marks doing the same project - they are not competing.
Irrespective of the ethics, its poor management. Competion increases stress, and increased stress decreases productivity. It forsters mistrust amoungst the very people who should be supporting each other. And at the end of the day, all the effort that goes into the project from one person is completely wasted.
But I have heard of this practice before. Personally, I agree with the poster who said that this would be a massive warning light not to work with this professor.

I'll take a slightly difference stance here...
You write:

I could have invested plenty of time into the research project, only to discover that a colleague had already finish more than I had and, therefore, made my progress effectively worthless.

Well, that could happen (and very often does) with other people outside of your organization. You have an idea, work on it, and before you're finished, someone else publishes their results.
Now, does it necessarily make your progress effectively worthless? In most cases, no:

You have worked on the project and have probably learned a lot of things in the process. This has a value. You now know the subject a lot better than you did before. This is marketable. It's no longer something you've vaguely heard about in lectures. This is something you actually worked on.
You may have taken a slightly different approach. You may have gotten slightly different results. This is still useful. You could publish something that confirms the findings of the others. Or disproves them. Or mitigates them. Or improves the process. The chances you did exactly the same thing and got exactly the same result are probably tiny (though of course it may depend on the field and topic).
You learned that life is not always fair :-)

Now, you don't specify whether whatever "reward" you would have gotten from this (grade, conference...) would necessarily only have been awarded to the first/best one. Maybe you would both have had a credit. Maybe once you are advanced enough in your research, you would have been put to work together.
But independent research is good. Different ideas, different approaches, different data. Progress. Dead ends. Victories. Upsets. That looks like research to me.
Whether this is the best approach, and the way this was presented to you was ideal is probably controversial (as seen by the reactions). But unethical is probably not a qualification I would slap on this.

This question seems to reside on the borderline of ethics, with the "grey area" arising from a few missing pieces of information not supplied by the OP.
I will begin by "guesstimating" what has happened so far.

The PI identified a potentially interesting research topic.
The PI identified several students who were potentially capable of conducting research on this topic.
The PI pitched this topic to all of the students in 2, above, dangling the prospect of publication as a prize.
So far we're on neutral ground.

The ethical issues relate to the nature of the resulting "competition."

The decision about publication will be made by a neutral third party such as a scientific journal, that will accept all "qualified" entries. This is the best possible result.
The decision about publication will be made by the neutral third party that will choose one project for publication, including candidates from the "outside" the group. This is OK.
The PI makes the choice of deciding which projects to submit for publication, selecting all that meet some objective "qualifying" standards.This is OK, also.
The PI makes the choice of selecting one student project to submit for publication. This is the case that raises ethical issues, at least as I see it. If there is only one "prize" and it is awarded by the PI (rather than a neutral third party), then the nature of the competition should have been disclosed to the students beforehand, IMHO.

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text:
Didn't attend field-specific conferences during my PhD; how much of a disadvantage is it?
During my mechanical engineering PhD, I was not able to go to my field specific conferences and had to go to diverse conferences. Thus, I couldn't interact with researchers directly in my field of research. As an introvert, it is very difficult for me to make connections or networks during conferences and events. So, I doubt that I could have done anything by going to field specific conferences either.
On top of that, I don't have anything on my CV to speak about my leadership qualities. I have done some volunteering work and judged a poster session during my PhD. I also have done some TA. But, apart from that, I have not done any organizing stuff.
I had earlier helped my advisor to write a grant and have been a reviewer in a journal. Since writing that grant, I have not received any opportunity to write a grant as my advisor has pivoted his research interests to other field quite different from mine. So, I don't have much experience in that too.
Excluding my publication record, as a PhD student about to submit my thesis, how much of a disadvantage am I in when applying for a future academic position?

Based on my life experience, there is zero correlation between "having people skills" and intro/extroversion. The main difference is that incompetent extroverts are more obvious than the incompetent introverts, because they leave a more obvious trail of destruction behind them.

Hellalot.  If you "can't do people" you can't do your students, your colleagues, your department chair, nor the Promotion and Tenure Committee.  (The students are the most important of your stakeholders.")

The text and the title seem to be asking different questions. The former appears to be more about the value of networking for getting a job.

People skills can be very important for an academic. We teach, we advise and guide students, we interact with colleagues. In lab sciences we often have to work closely with others. Collaboration, even in such fields as math, is very important today. Moreover, people will tend to ignore your ideas if you don't learn how to present them enthusiastically.
However, that doesn't close you out if you are introverted. Even if you are very introverted. People skills are just that: skills. They can be learned and practiced. Many of the people you meet who have good people skills are actually introverted.
I've mentioned how introverts can interact effectively in public in answer to other questions here, for example.
Treat people skills just like any other skills that you need to learn. Start out slow, if necessary, but practice. Play the role of a confident somewhat extroverted person, even if you aren't.

This answer was provided for an earlier version of the question that was quite focused on effective strategies for introverts in academia.

I totally understand the importance of this skillset. I actively tried to improve myself during my early stages of PhD. Probably I should have tried harder. I have few months before I submit and I am already 30 years of age. Isn't it too old for me to change anything for good?

Not at all. The changes in behavior I described in the linked post occurred when I was closer to 40, actually. Don't think of it as changing your personality or your self. Treat it as a skill to be learned. Hard at first, easier when you get more practice.

I used to be an introvert all the way through my MA. It took some time, but now I seem like an extrovert. Plus, I'm excited about research, so it's not difficult for me to start talking to academics. Teaching helped me to become a better public speaker, too.

@Buffy, you answered the question title rather than the question body. I've just corrected the former to fit the latter.

Actually @einpoklum, I answered the original question (including the full body statement) as it was at the time.

@Buffy: Ok, fair enough.

Leadership qualities matter if you are applying for certain prestigious fellowships, such as Marie Curie Actions. But I think outside of that its more like a job, where people hire you based on whether you can do the work, which in academia means having certain technical skills and evidence of productivity like papers.
However communication skills are very important, as you have to sell yourself by writing good statements of research, cover letters, CVs and interviews. You also need  good references as well.

I was awarded a MC long-term fellowship, admittedly more than 5 years, and "leadership" was not a part of the application. Rules may have changed in the meantime, but it is such a hard thing to measure that I don't think it will be included in an MC call.

I just wrote an application for an MC fellowship, and it definitely was "relevant".  There are quantifiable ways to show this, for example if you have supervised students, taught classes, have been part of organizing committees.

By what you say in the comments, I assume you feel that you are an introvert, and are afraid that at 30 years, it is too late to change that. I can alleviate that fear for you.
I used to be an obvious introvert (certainly during school, but in my heart until now) and at some point kind of forgot about it. I'd say that I am interpreted as an extrovert these days, I certainly am in a job position where I talk a lot with people, and am perceived as somone people go to to get decisions made for them, as a coach, mentor, etc..
I'll admit freely that I stumbled into that situation... over and over again. A lot of coincidences; some life-changing experiences; some "life phases" here and there; and often being too timid to actively fight out of extroversy-inducing situations. At most points in times (including today), I could very well relate to introvert people, and if given the choice, I would dearly like to live a more introvert life.
So, keep your head up and do what you are doing. Yes, being social helps in all walks of life, including presumably academia. No, it's never too late to change, in my opinion. Or, to put it the other way round, people who cannot change cannot change irrespective of age. No, I cannot tell you how to do it, as I don't know you, but one thing that certainly did it for me was not to run away from challenges, and (even if it's not political correct to say that) throw yourself into cold water once in a while.
Seems like finishing your PhD and looking for jobs is exactly that. Pondering about how much you are at a disadvantage seems mightily distracting to me. Just do what you do best (I assume you have no trouble getting good marks and finishing your thesis...) and good things will come to you - you can get better at being social by practice.

I will answer your question as stated at the moment:

how much of a disadvantage am I in when applying for a future academic position?

If (i) you have the other bits of the CV, such as publications, to backup your ability to do research, and (ii) your field is not so small that everyone knows everyone (including PhD students), getting a Postdoctoral position won't be an issue just because you skipped conferences. I know very few people that got a Postdoc after giving a killer talk at a meeting - no one in fact (life science). It is nice to go to conferences to showcase your work and put yourself out there (and be updated on the latest research), but in my experience your superivor's contact list and reference, followed by publications, will be much more important factors at this stage.
With that out the way, if you want to stay in academia, going to a conferences / meetings will be important at the next stage when looking for a group leader position. Then you should have a body of work to show off and interaction with the people that will hire you will be important - you want to be on their radar. I don't think you will need to go to all conferences, so as introvert, you can choose small focused meetings, preferably with a few participants you already know, to get you started.

I find some people are assuming introvert/extrovert are the only binary at play, when I think it's that's just the X axis, and there's a Y axis of Backstage/Performer that's also relevant.
            Performer
                |
                |
Introvert ------------- Extrovert
                |
                |
            Backstage

I'm an introvert (I need lots of alone time to recharge, I need to psych myself up for social things), but I love teaching. I like having a role, I like the attention.  I also like how oddly temporary it is: the semester or panel is over, and next time it happens, I can try things differently.
My husband is an extrovert (has a few different gaming groups, always helping friends, just in general more social and that never drains him), but he doesn't want to be the center of attention.  His job life is focused on helping others excel, and while he's had to learn to be more visible and give presentations -- that's what freaked him out more than creating something permanent.
Some actors of of course are known for the performance part, and they want to party every night (extrovert, performer); sometimes the production designer who keeps things on schedule and is great with work collaboration might also need time in slow motion, at home.
I came up with this "theory" when I was trying for an MLS -- lots of people assume librarianship is all about introverted cataloging, so there were leadership classes trying to encourage people to "embrace extroversion" -- and I got in discussions about how that may be too big a shift, but it could be viewed as "roles" with specific skills.  People thought I wasn't an introvert because I was outspoken in class -- that was me being "On."  I have depression (why the MLS was dropped), and it took me so much energy to have Teaching performance AND Grad School performance.  Introverts may just need to save up our "social points", whether for performing or collaborating, and spawn them slowly.
(And there are a LOT of reasons for not going to conferences - especially if $/family are issues. It may matter for prestigious colleges, of course.  But you may find you LOVE teaching -- lots of shy people can be great at that.  Or you may be an OK teacher, and be a great backstage person, doing committee work and delivering the research.  There is a need for a LOT of different neurotypes in academia. Just trust your strengths and all that. )

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text:
How useful is studying MSc Computer Science in Switzerland?
I am an international student in Australia studying Bachelor of IT.
Australian education system as the norm here is to take 4 subjects per semester and these subjects are pretty much "dumbed down". So a lot of subjects don't really teach much, for instance for Algorithms and Data Structures subject we weren't taught complexity at all, so during technical interviews for my internships, I was not able to give any answers in regarding to complexity.
Now this will be my last semester, and I feel like I still need more coursework for Computer Science and spending more money for Australian universities just sounds ridiculous at this step. Since almost all US and UK universities need honours award from Australian degrees (and that's extra $26k), I will not be applying to any US universities . I applied to one UK university that never mentioned requirement of honours and got rejection. I have applied to UBC in Canada but it will also cost me about CA$15-20k/y. So I had a look at European universities and found out that German and Swiss universities charges about 500-600 Euros per year. I found out that most German reputable universities don't really offer fully English Masters degrees in Computer Science, however that's not the case. ETH Zurich prefers students with honours as well. I found that EPFL has a good education and I would like to study Distributed Systems, which they offer quite a lot subjects on that, however what concerns me is after graduation job security. As I mentioned, my purpose of studying Computer Science is not to become an academia but to have stronger Computer Science skills.
Anyway so far it sounded like very specific, but my question is not that specific. Would it really worth studying Computer Science in Switzerland, with the consideration of graduate job prospects as well as doing internships and the fact that I don't have EU citizenship? I know that Google would accept international grads, but are there many companies like that?

Can you compress your question to its essence? There is a lot of irrelevant information for the actual question.

I tried to get rid off the most irrelevant parts

Note that Master studies are not really considered 'graduate school' in Switzerland.

EPFL is one of the better technical universities. This has two consequences: 1) it will be hard (as @xLeitix notes, if your current school doesn't even teach complexity, you will be in for a challenging time at EPFL), and 2) you won't have a problem to get a job afterwards.
Note that differences between schools are not as pronounced in Europe as elsewhere. For instance, I am pretty sure that you will not be able to attend a German or Swiss university without exposure to algorithm complexity. Consequently, employers (both academic and industry) in Europe don't really care all that much about school quality. Grades, internships and the impression you leave at the interview are much more important.
Beware of costs of living in Zurich. Zurich compares with New York City. It's horrendous. (I used to live there.) Lausanne should be somewhat better, but Switzerland is generally an expensive place. If you seriously plan on going there, check local rents and/or supermarkets (coop.ch or migros.ch - you should be able to find this week's offers even without speaking German) and convert them from CHF to AUD to get an impression.
Note the language: Zurich is German-speaking, but Swiss German is very hard for a non-native speaker, even if you did take German classes. Lausanne is French-speaking, and the Swiss French is closer to "standard" French than Swiss German is to German. Francophones dislike speaking English, so you will get by more easily in Zurich than in Lausanne in English.
Switzerland is not in the EU (although it of course cooperates), so your EU membership is not all that important. With an ETH/EPFL diploma, you should have no problem getting a job anywhere in Switzerland or the EU.

"Francophones dislike speaking English, so you will get by more easily in Zurich than in Lausanne in English." - It's a little more than that. Because in Lausanne (and all of Swissromande) children were (changed recently) required to learn German but not another language and the German-speaking part was allowed to learn any foreign language (so most choose English) you generally find VERY weak English skills in Lausanne and quite good English skills in Zurich.

This post is really good. One generally important tidbid of information: "Consequently, employers (both academic and industry) in Europe don't really care all that much about school quality. Grades, internships and the impression you leave at the interview are much more important." In Europe, it is much more important that you are good than that you come from a good school.

@xLeitix Interesting point in your last comment. Hope its true though. Future will show!

@WolfgangKuehne It has been my impression at least. I come from a good-but-not-worldclass CS school, and colleagues of mine have scored very competitive jobs in Microsoft, IBM and Google.

@xLeitix would you mind disclosing which UNI is that one of yours? or would u prefer keeping it for urself? Thanks tho'! :) ===> Saw it in your profile

I have been to Lousanne, I know its expensive but I live in Australia where a room rent is $800/m. About complexity, I went to another uni to take advanced algorithms subject and fixed that problem. At the moment I am interning at Oracle. So I don't think I am that bad. I tried so hard to be better.

Honestly there are really cool universities in Europe where you can learn much about Computer Science and related subjects.
If you look at the rankings of universities in the world you will see that ETHZ and EPFL are ranked among top 50 unis for CS subjects. Last time I checked ETHZ was somewhere around 7 and EPFL somewhere close to 20. However keep in mind that the rankings are important for future employers but not that important in terms of teaching. Wherever you go in Switzerland and Germany you will face the same approach to science, with top class professors.
Let me clarify some stuff for you, first of all tuition fees in Swiss are not around 500-600 euros! They are a bit higher, however the real problem with living in Swiss are the living costs. I hear it is damn expensive over there. Especially if you think about Zurich.
When it comes to Germany, the semester fees are less than 300 euros. So you will be paying at mos 600 euros per year for studies. In some federations of Germany you even get a semester ticket, which you can use for traveling for free by bus and by train withing the borders of the federation where your University is located.
It is true that all the programmes offered by universities are not completely in English. However the selection of courses which is provided for international students is pretty nice. Additionally, at the moment there is a lack of IT people in Germany. My professor said "The only way not to find an IT job in Germany is to die early".
If you register for master studies in germany, the state requires you to have at least 8000 euro in bank for 12 months. So they have calculated that as a student you can live comfortably with that money. However, you are free to spend as much as you want. This is the minimum that I told you.
If you are interested for English studies, bear in mind that Sweden provides CS studies mostly in English (over 80% of the population is fluent in English over there).
I think the main thing that you have to consider when registering for your future studies is the difficulties that you will face due to "poor" background at the moment. Studies will be very demanding (I know it form myself, I've been in the same position), but with hardwork you can achieve everything. However, if you are not ready to invest extra time to your studies, do not bother going to ETHZ or EPFL, or top universities in Germany.
I hope I answered you question, if you have further dilemmas let me know.
Edit1: Since you are aware of your drawbacks coming from the Bachelors, analyze well the curriculum of the university where you are planning to apply, and before that make sure to watch some of the free courses (related to that curriculum) provided by top universities online: http://www.mooc-list.com/
The courses provided in Masters studies are usually a continuation of the courses from the Bachelors, so check what the students have studies during bachelors in the unis that u are planning to apply
Selam ;)

About Germany I heard that TU's like TU Munchen are quite hard and doesn't have any assignment for CompSci degrees. I checked EPFL's curriculum, I see no problem with that and it seems like almost all subjects are offered in English.
Unfortunately, Sweden doesn't really have high reputation university, so not really considering that.
Also with German job advertisements, I mostly found jobs either requiring high German fluency or doing very front-end(not so technical) jobs.

@SarpKaya Wilfgang is right about ETZH and EPFL they are top tier schools. They are tough to get in and tough once you are there. If you don't have the knowledge to do well in an interview I suspect you will have major problems there (if you somehow manage to get admitted to either of these two schools). The costs of living in Switzerland are also quite high (compared to other European countries).

@SarpKaya "Sweden doesn't really have high reputation university, so not really considering that" You should look again. The KTH Royal Institute of Technology (http://www.kth.se/en) is certainly on par with Lausanne or with most good German universities, especially re: distributed systems (they have strong ties to Ericsson Research).

@SarpKaya as xLeitix mentioned, KTH is one nice uni in Swede, the others being Chalmers and Lund University. So do not hesitate to think of them as well. As far as language requirements go in Germany IT jobs, I can assure that Germans are much more tolerant than Swiss people when it comes to the language. Besides that I see nothing bad in learning a new language, and I am sure you can do it for the 2 years that you will be in a given German speaking country. Knowing German is a massive advantage, it provides full access to job opportunities in Swiss, Austria and Germany.

I did study German at high school but Lousanne is not a German canton so I don't think I can learn anything more than Gruzi.

As a general comment: I feel there is a lot of fluff in this question which (as you seem to figure out yourself) makes the question seem more specific to you personally than what it actually is.
So after reading through rather unnecessary backstory (no offense :) ) I think this was your actual question?

I found that EPFL has a good education and I would like to study Distributed Systems, which they offer quite a lot subjects on that, however what concerns me is after graduation job security. As I mentioned, my purpose of studying CompSci is not to become an academia but to have stronger Computer Science skills.

Yes, job security with a MSc in Computer Science, also, even especially, with a focus on distributed systems, is very good in Switzerland and the surrounding countries. Lausanne is considered a good to excellent university in Europe. However, if your current school is as bad as you describe it (no complexity theory??), you may find the masters in Lausanne quite challenging. Not impossible, but you will probably spend a lot (!) of time learning the fundamentals.
EDIT: (this has been added after my original answer)

with the consideration of graduate job prospects and the fact that I don't have EU citizenship?

I do not know how not having an EU citizenship factors in. I am also a foreigner working in Zurich, but coming from an EU state. I have heard that things are not always easy for non-europeans around here, but I cannot offer any concrete info.

As I recall from my time in Switzerland, the rule is that before an employer can hire someone without the right to work in Switzerland or the EU, that employer must show there are no available, qualified workers in Switzerland or in the EU. This is quite a high hurdle (but not impossibly high) for an employer to jump over. Either you must be really special or they must REALLY want you.

@earthling That's a good point. So there is not much chance for me to stay in Switzerland.

MSc level jobs in Switzerland are usually easy to get, especially in EE/CS areas. So don't bother about that. All foreigners (EU or not) are subject to the rule that some Swiss people couldn't get the job done, but any decent company has workarounds for that. The actual rule for non-EU students is that they need to find a job at most 6 months after graduation, which is not so hard for ETHZ/EPFL graduates. However, both EPFL and ETHZ are very selective at the Master level, so you may not be accepted easily, and life is very expensive in both towns.

@sansuiso
How many decent companies do you know in Switzerland like that? All I know is Google...

@SarpKaya: there is a lot of small companies and startups, IT support for banks and market places, niche companies that may be known worldwide like Doodle, Scandit or Kooaba... There's also a rising business in secure data storage and processing because of Swiss particularities like former Army caves (to keep the servers) and Swiss secrecy tradition...

In have been recently taking Master of Advanced Studies in ETHZ, Zurich. From that I have seen, most of courses are optional. Each of them just gives some number of points and you simply need to collect enough. If it is initially not obvious which courses are good, it is not uncommon to take more than planned and drop some you find less useful. Of course, there are also mandatory courses you must take and pass they exams, but in general you most likely will not study that you see useless.
ETHZ seems quite oriented to self-dependent work and significant percent of the knowledge is acquired outside the lecture time (literature, assignments, etc).
Some courses are in German but there are also many English courses, as ETHZ hires professors from the whole world. Have never heard about somebody giving lectures in Swiss German in the university or even secondary school. Standard German is used for teaching.

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text:
How to get a PhD (doctorat) in France?
I previously asked this question in Mathematics.SE (which is now removed from that site):

How to be a professor and a researcher in academia if I only have a baccalauréat in maths and don't have much money?

And one kind user from France said that I can't unless I have a PhD. (French baccalauréat is only graduation from high-school.)
But how to get a Doctorat in France? I search for informations about a PhD in general: like how much would it cost me?...etc
Also I heard of 'classe prépa', should I take them first?

You need to get an undergraduate degree from a University first, then typically you need an Honours or Master's degree to enrol in a PhD. Since you say you only have a high-school qualification, I am voting to close because questions pertaining to undergraduate studies, and the funding thereof, are off-topic on Academia.SE.

I hesitate to vote to close yet. What does baccalauréat in maths mean? High school in Math? Would someone familair with French education system explain? Thanks.

@scaaahu As I understand it, a French baccalauréat is an exam sat at the end of high school. Passing this grants university entrance.

The baccalauréat (also known as bac) is the end-of-lycée diploma students sit in order to enter university.

@Moriarty Thanks. Got it. I followed your suit.

@user10453: if you plan to stay and study in France, I suggest that you ask your questions on a french forum like http://www.les-mathematiques.net/phorum/. People there will be more familiar with the french system.

@Moriarty I think your answer is good but I disagree with the vote to close. The question seems to be about the requirements to enter a PhD program. An undergraduate degree is (part of) the answer, not the question. I think we should leave it open.

I think the question is perfectly aligned with academia. It asks about entering into a PhD program, question is novice but not unrelated to the theme.

Baccalauréat in math means that you went to high school with course emphasis on math and physics and that you passed a version of the national end-of-high-school exam (baccalauréat) in which math and physics were more difficult and beared more weight.

As somebody who's actually doing a PhD in France, maybe I can provide some more information.
Firstly, as everybody says, you have to get an equivalent of a Bachelor degree (I think that's "licence" in France), and the a Master degree as well. I didn't do this part of my studies in France, but, some things that I overheard:

of course, nobody is paying while you are doing that, and you most probably have to pay a yearly tuition (probably around 400eur)
I think that there is some programs to get some scholarships that could help you, and you'll probably be eligible to help from CAF for a while
to supplement your income, I'm sure you can teach already in the last year of Master, and possibly (but I'm not sure), even as soon as you finish you Bachelors (aka "licence")
other major expenses are living costs and eating costs: you can usually get a student dormitory (200-300 eur/month is plausible, but it depends on a city) and as a student, you get cheap student lunches (3-4eur/meal)

As I said, I didn't do this Bachelor-Master part of my education in France. But, for the PhD I can offer more information:

a PhD in France is basically a normal work contract lasting for (exactly) 3 years, with a usual possibility of extending it for 3-6 months
to obtain a PhD, you have to obtain a grant. Sometimes, you apply to professors for a subject that is already funded, and sometimes you apply to the professors and then you submit your grant application together (like me)
you still have to pay a yearly tuition (~400eur), but you will be receiving a monthly salary where the amount depends on your grant. It's usually between 1300 and 1600eur
in your first year, you are still possibly eligible for CAF
there's two type of PhD contracts: research, or teaching. The teaching contracts are harder to obtain, but it is usually easier in your second year than your first. If you need/want more income per month, a teaching contract gets you an additional 300eur/month on your salary
other major expenses are again lodging and food: again, sometimes dormitory housing is available, but renting a flat can be acceptable as well (around 300eur/month if your flat-sharing up to 550-600 if you're renting alone). Usually, the lab/university provides some kind of lunch discount tickets as well.

As for some additional information about how to get in to a PhD programme:

in France, it is obligatory to do at least one internship in a research lab or a company during your Masters, but two are possible
if you are planning to stay in France, it is very customary for people to do their PhDs in the same lab where they did their internships, and some even just extend on their internship topics
your Master supervisor and all the contacts you made during your internships will probably be most helpful, as you can ask them for advice, or even if they know of a position / professor that would suit your plans
additionally, if you want to do your PhD outside of France (it always needs a Master degree), it's probably a bit harder to obtain (although your Master contacts can help you). It's a paying job with a salary in a lot of European countries (some examples includ: Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland...)

This is a well-written answer. I would just add that usually, after your bac (baccalauréat, aka A-levels), you have 3 years of license (L1, L2, L3, this is called "bachelor" in many countries, but it's not the French "bac"), then you enter master (M1, M2). During M2, you are supposed to choose/organize an internship; this usually concludes in a Master project being written, and quite often you continue with the same people for your PhD. Don't worry about the PhD scolarship now, the opportunities will come.

Penelope's answer is already very good, I just want to give some additional details.
First, a Ph.D. is required to get a position in academia. To be even clearer, there are several positions and you can learn more about what is a maître de conférence or a professeur des universités here. In France, a Ph.D. is not the highest academic diploma that one can get as you can prepare yourself to get the Habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR), which will allow you to supervise Ph.D. students.
To be eligible for a Ph.D. program in France (or doctorat), having a Master's degree (or an equivalent diploma) is necessary. Now the French educational system is quite confusing if you are not familiar with it. Basically, after a french baccalauréat, you can either choose to go to:

Université: where you will need three years to complete your Licence, then an additional two years to complete your Master.
Classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles (CPGE) and Grandes écoles: since you posted about mathematics, you will choose to go to a scientific CPGE, where you will attend a maths/physics intensive two-year curriculum that prepares you to take the concours d'entrée aux grandes écoles. These grandes écoles are given the right, by the government, to deliver a Diplôme d'ingénieur (or Engineering diploma), which is equivalent to a Master's degree.

While they both deliver Master's degrees (i.e., you can apply to a Ph.D. after them), the universités are more likely to prepare you for academic research whereas the CPGE and Grandes écoles are more suited for working in the industry. However, I highly suggest you to inform yourself about these two possibilities before choosing a path.
Finally, I want to emphasize on a point mentioned by Penelope: during your Ph.D., you remain a student, which means you can have access to all the privileges offered to students regarding everyday life (housing, public transports, social security, ...) while being pretty decently paid. Unless you have a family to support and if you don't have any accidents, there should be no reason to have financial difficulties.

Great answer, perfectly completes my answer for the before-PhD part I didn't know much about. Btw, do you know the exact information about the teaching part I didn't know: can you start teaching after the Licence or only in the last year of Master? I'd like to put definitive information in my answer if you know.

From what I have read here, you have the possibility after a Master's degree to prepare for the agrégation (a national exam) which will allow you to teach in high school or higher education, without doing any kind of research. I don't think it is possible to start teaching right after the Licence.

About the teaching as a PhD student part: I heard that it is not standard practice given the mostly strict limit of 3 years. But it can be useful if one wants to teach after the PhD.

If you want to get your Ph.d in france, you will first have to get a bachelor degree and a master degree. You need to get accepted for Ph.d though, though finishing your master degree in the high average of your class (honorary degrees) makes the acceptance more likely.
The acceptance of your Ph.d varies on other factors as well, if a lot of people are applying for a spot with a better background than you, they might get it.

On the question

How to be a professor and a researcher in academia if I only have a
  baccalauréat in maths and don't have much money?

You don't neccesarily need a Ph.D to be a professor, if the AND researcher is important, than you will need one. If you just aim to lecture, they accept people with a master degree to lecture in the (professional) bachelor degrees. (Ofcourse, with a Ph.D you have more chance of getting the position)

"You don't neccesarily need a Ph.D to be a professor" -- Do you know a Professeur/Maître de Conference in France without a PhD or its equivalent?


text:
What is the purpose of "issues" and "volumes" in journal publications in relation to DOIs and citations?
I think I have stumbled once again over the meanings of "issue" and "volume".
So I have found this article which declares both fields. Now I used JabRef's DOI to BibTeX to pull the info and it worked as expected. But it only pulled the volume number.
But sometimes I noticed the DOI database only pulls the issue number for an article, more than only giving the volume number. Why?
I suppose one should prefer using the issue because there are (usually) issues of a journal ("magazine") in a year... right?

If JabRef pull's an issue number, but not the volume, that's a bug (either in JabRef or the publishers database).

I guess your question is about citing an article. If the article you want to cite  is in a journal which have both volume and issue number (this is very often the case). Then you should write both of them.
The issue is the booklet number in which the article was published. They are grouped together to make a volume. Often one volume correspond to all the issues of one given year, but not always. Page numbers usually run sequentially through a volume (issue 2's first page will be numbered one higher than the last page of issue 1 and so on).
Finding the article in a (paper) library is easier if you have both the volume and issue number since you directly know which booklet you need to consult. While helpful, the issue number isn't strictly required in order to find a particular article. Indeed, libraries often bind all the issues of a single volume into a hard-backed book where the page number is sufficient.
Today with electronic paper those notions might have lost their meaning,  and in the end, the DOI is probably the best way to share a reference.  However,  it is still in the habit to provide both issue and volume number, and given what they mean, it does not really make sense to have only one of them. The last word will go to the editor of the journal you are publishing the reference in and the bibliography style may or may not include the issue number. So for your personal bibliography, it seems safer to have it for the day you publish in a journal which request issue numbers.
For this particular paper in jabref, I don't know why only one get pulled. Maybe it is a bug, or a database error.

The pages are typically numbered sequentially within a volume: issue 1 might be pages 1-150, issue 2 pages 151-300 and so on. As such, the issue number is typically redundant so, while it's best to cite both volume and issue number, a reference will usually still make sense with only one of them, as long as that one is the volume.

@DavidRicherby is correct. In my field it's usual to refrain from citing issue numbers.

@DavidRicherby Yes, but again if you go to a library you probably don't want to pull each issue to find the one with the right page.

@Moriarty you mean the journal will not put it in the bibliography or you would not give it when providing 'informally' a reference to someone?

@Lynda: Previously, it was common for libraries to bind all issues of a single volume into a hard-covered book. Then you would just use the volume number to find the right volume, and the page number to find the right article. The issue number would be of little use — it would be actually a bit difficult to find the right issue in the volume. It seems that more recently libraries have got a bit lazy and just keep individual issues as is, which means that knowing the issue number is actually useful.

@Lynda I agree that that makes the issue number helpful and I include it in my own citations. But, if the issue number is missing, it's hardly the end of the world: you can fairly accurately guestimate the issue number by eye based on the page number you're looking for and the thickness of the individual issues. The issue number isn't required, which is what your answer states.

@Lynda The issue number is absent from the journal's bibliography, for example: Smith J., 2009, MNRAS, 407, 3125. Most people read the electronic journals now, so issue numbers are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

@DavidRicherby Definitely not the end of the world, the information is provided for convenience and is indeed redundant. And nowadays with DOI and electronic copies, almost everything seems kind of redundant.

@Moriarty I corrected my answer to precise it is the journal choice to have or not the issue number.

So if a paper is published in 08/2004, you say this would be volume 8 in 2004?

@henry No, you cannot exchange the date/issue/vol. Each journal has its own numbering so the issue for august is not necessary 8. Thus you cannot deduct the issue/volume number from the date (I am assuming when writing 08/2004, you meant August 2004)

I don't know if it is a date. The source I am relating this example to, was actually published in August of 2004, however the numbering was simply provided as 08/2004.

Ok you are right, each journal does is its own way. This journal with the 08/2004 declares it has several "Ausgaben" per year, which translates to "issues".

@henry It can happen that a journal publishes more than one volume per year. There are journals with 20000 pages yearly, you don't want all of that in one volume. There is more info in my answer to When citing a journal paper, should I use the online publication year or the print publication year?

The issue number is useful when pulling a hard copy of the journal before it has been bound.  Some libraries wait a year or two before binding.  So during that time you have loose issues.
P.s.  Some people still use the library, still read hard copies.  Not everyone is young and computer oriented--you'll get the wrong perspective if you think the SE demographic represents Academia. Don't assume everyone is using the screen only.

I learned to lookup articles using physical volumes and issues. The day I found I could read some computer science articles sitting at my desk using Mosaic was an absolute delight. Don't ignore the old and computer orientated. We do exist.


text:
I attended a poorly ranked school for my undergraduate education. Will this affect my chances for a PhD in economics?
I studied math and economics at a poorly ranked university, and I will graduate in the near future. I have a position lined up at a prestigious, data-heavy research institution, where I'll work with numerous economists for a few years before applying to top PhD programs (Berkeley, Chicago, MIT, Harvard, etc.) I took two courses in analysis and did well, although per the quality of my institution, the courses were not challenging.
I also worked as a research assistant and conducted self-guided researched (not published outside my university), so I have several professors willing to write detailed recommendations for me. Apart from a few hiccups in non math/econ courses, my grades are perfect.
Will the fact that my undergraduate degree comes from an unranked institution affect my chances of attending a top PhD program? Will it affect my chances even though my experience after undergrad should speak in my favor?

What matters more is usually your recommendations. i.e. who and what they wrote.

@picakhu It's sad about this system, that recommendations are so important. Guy from a poor university (or a poor country) has little chance to get a well-recognized prof to write him a recommendation, no matter how smart, creative or hard working the student is.

@Piotr, yes, sad, but unfortunately, taking someone who doesn't have a credible recommendation is a big liability. I think people tend to avoid it. (There are plenty of people in top universities from poor countries and or universities)

@PiotrMigdal I have found that when applying for jobs, fellowships, etc. similar candidates from my university are simply ignored because we don't come from top schools, even before recommendations go through. I think some of that is more a conspiracy theory than reality, but I have had people mention to me that they haven't heard of my university so they're sceptical of the coursework. Will my position at a prestigious research institution (not a university) be enough?

@picakhu Sure. But still there is a lot of no-merit but application know-how. One year a friend of mine (from Poland) applied for PhD in US. He got rejected everywhere. The next year he learnt how to write applications, how to find the right one for recommendations letters, etc - and he got everywhere (and he aimed only top universities). I understand that taking 'an outsider' is risky but it's why science is way less open then it boasts to be.

@PiotrMigdal So if I have recommendations that speak to my qualifications, even if they're from professors at my poorly ranked university, as well as a well-known research institution, will the graduate admissions committees not care about the quality of my undergrad school?

@JohnBensin I'm only a PhD student, not much an insider. However, it seems to be important to choose the right person for recommendation (i.e. the most prestigious professor you know, or can know).

Your letters will need to demonstrate that you are as well-prepared as other students at the top universities you would like to attend. In the first place, are you? Look at the first year grad courses, would you be ready to start them? It will help enormously if your recommenders, in addition to being enthusiastic, demonstrate familiarity with the demands of the programs you're applying to, and are able to write honestly that you'll be able to meet them.

@FrankThorne Good advice. I know several of my professors (and hopefully my colleagues at my research institution, as they get to know me more) will attest to that, and I think with a fair amount of preparation, I'll be ready for first year graduate courses immediately. As I said, though, it won't be without preparation.

As the commenters have pointed out, a lot will depend on your ability to get good letters of recommendation. However, there is an important issue to note: a good letter of recommendation does not mean the same thing as "a letter from someone famous." You can get a letter of recommendation from a big name that is completely useless, if it doesn't provide any real information of value about the candidate.
Instead, what you want are people who can testify that you are a good student, and show evidence that you can become a good researcher. Since you have excellent records, and are working with a research group before applying to graduate school, I think you have the right groundwork for getting good letters. To make sure that you do so, you'll want to meet with the people who will be writing the letters, make sure that they are willing and enthusiastic about writing the letters (hint: if they are at all hesitant, do not get a letter from them!), and then provide them with the necessary material they'll need (CV's, samples of writing and research work, citations and awards, etc.) to write the letter.
Ultimately, the only way attending an unranked school will affect your chances of getting in as a graduate student is if the admissions committee at the school you're applying to shows such a bias. If you're concerned about such a possibility, and have the resources (time, money, motivation) to do so, setting up a meeting with the person in charge of graduate admissions at the department you're interested in probably can't hurt.

From experience of my friends (then, undergraduates in Warsaw), unfortunately, it turned out that it is much better to ask a prof. who knows your name (but is recognized), that a postdoc who know your work really well. Surely, it may work differently when you are from a top tier US univ., but otherwise I have an impression that in recommendation letters the first think they look at is the surname, only then - content.

I hadn't thought about setting up a meeting directly, but that is something I'll certainly consider when the time comes (if it's an option).

@PiotrMigdal: It could be location dependent. But in US departments, quality matters more than pedigree, particularly since it's for graduate positions—and the likelihood of getting a big name to write a letter as an undergrad is quite small. However, you are correct that a letter from a professor will carry more weight than a letter from a postdoc.

@JohnBensin: It's best if you do it well in advance of the application process—sometime during the calendar year before the fall you plan to start.

@aeismail The difference was not big names vs small names, but small names vs no names. To be more precise, one year a friend of mine (from Poland, smartest in his year) applied for PhD in US. He got rejected everywhere. The next year he learnt how to write applications, how to find the right one for recommendations letters, etc - and he got everywhere (and he aimed only top universities). I would argue that you need to be good and know how to apply (apparently, for US students or some elite UE universities it may be 'obvious', but for the rest of the world - not necessarily).

@aeismail When I'm setting up such a meeting, I assume that I wouldn't want to let on that I'm worried about being rejected because of the quality of my undergraduate's curriculum, because if I do let on to that, it might make an admissions committee that wasn't prejudiced think twice about my undergrad program, i.e. I don't think it was good, but they didn't know that, but by hinting at my apprehensions, they now assume it wasn't good. Does that make sense?

@PiotrMigdal: "He learned how to write applications" tells me that he may not have written a good one the first time around, which would certainly ruin his chances. If you can't write a convincing essay or cover letter, you're not likely to get very far in an interview or admissions process. So I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from this. Also, unless you saw the "before" and "after" letters, you don't know how much of a quality improvement there was on that front, either. But as someone who reviews applications, having a "name" write a letter helps, but a better letter helps even more.

@JohnBensin: Obviously not when setting up the interview. Just make it clear you're interested in the department. You will probably have to let the admissions officer know at some point which school you're attending. But don't make it a panicked statement—just state that "I went to school X."

@aeismail By that time, it will have been at least two years since my graduation, so I shouldn't have the need to mention it immediately regardless.

@aeismail You are right, maybe I drawn too many conclusions. Still, it was a case "got nowhere" vs "got everywhere" with the same skill and very similar achievements. However, besides that, he knew to apply for the Fulbright scholarship (and he got it), whit might have been the decisive factor. And the first cover letter was not bad for my taste (I saw it), but  comparing to the second one - it was less professional (still, application skills increased, not neither scientific nor social).

@JohnBensin: I should have said that the admissions officer will likely ask you where you went to school. You don't want to lie about that. But again, since you'll have done other things since then, I think it won't be a problem in any case.

@PiotrMigdal: Having a portable fellowship would definitely increase his chances of getting in everywhere. That's a pretty important change in his situation, and by itself could be enough to tip many graduate admissions committees from "lean no" to "yes."

@aeismail: A Fulbright fellowship is not just a portable fellowship. It's also a status symbol not unlike going to a top school! It's a symbol that some outside organization a history of being discerning has viewed and decided that a particular candidate is excellent. Even if Fulbrights came with no money at all, folks with the line on her CV would get many more second looks.

@BenjaminMakoHill: I wasn't slighting the Fulbright. But the fact is any portable fellowship will carry that extra weight with it. (For foreigners interested in studying in the US, however, there aren't so many other options.)

@PiotrMigdal How did your friend learn and what did he learn? Could you please share some links or resources?

It will probably affect your chances. But it's not a show-stopper.
Coming from a top school means students are more likely to get that second look and it means that students are more likely to have recommendations from people than the folks on the admission committee already know and trust. For those reasons, coming from a top school affords a real advantage over unranked schools. It's not fair but there are lots of reasons to believe that an applicant from a top school will get more bites than an identical one from an unranked school.
That said, if you think you can put together a solid application, you shouldn't get too hung up about the status symbols you won't have and others might. Nobody is making decisions based only on where the applicant went to college.
If you have great test scores, a history of excellent academic performance (sounds like you do), a demonstrated ability to do solid research, and a glowing set of letters from a good set of letter writers, you have a good chance at a top program. Focus on the things you can change, improve, and build on and not on the stuff you can't.
FWIW: I did my undergrad at an unranked liberal arts college and graduate school at a top school — although not in economics. Moving up the status hierarchy is always harder than lateral or downward moves, but it happens all the time.

I have been in your situation several years ago (in 2011). I graduated BA in Economics and Business Adminsitration from anranked university from one of the developing countries in Eastern Europe. But then I enrolled in Master's Program where I had a chance to meet highly respected Economists who were professors in US programs as well. Neither my Master's Program was ranked. They were just funded by the World Bank and had enough money to invite US professors. By getting As and A-s in all of their courses and being engaged with the professors I earned quite good reputation and showed them that I was motivated and knowledgeable enough to study in some 30-40 US programs. Despite the fact that my school was not ranked after getting recommendation letters from these well-known US professors I was admitted in top 30 programs in the US.
The take away from my story is that the rank of the university does not as far as you get strong recommendation letters from well-known and well-published economists, researchers.

I would advise to develop a relationship via email with professors at your target schools. Dig in and learn about their research and show how interested you are in working with them. Also target assistant and associate professors at those schools as they are more likely to be in the admissions committee paying their dues. They might be the difference if everything else is good.
I know Penn accepts some students from schools I had never heard at all. They try to diversify, just the odds might be different.

Why the downvote? This is a good answer.