Hi, everyone. I am currently a student, and I am set to work with a professor on my independent research project shortly. The professor wants a research proposal, budget, etc. before I begin working. However, I have read many horror stories online of professors stealing the ideas inside the proposals that their students send them and doing the projects themselves. Is there any way I can prevent this from happening? Can I put some sort of copyright on my research proposal to mark the new ideas inside said proposal as my intellectual property?


Thanks.

bump

Hi team, hmmmm. This actually happened to me when I was newbie at research. It wasn't a supervisor who took my idea, but someone I'd worked with who offered to advise me on a funding application. He's taken my original idea in quite a different diection to the path I eventually took, although our basic starting points are the same.

It's actually turned put quite well for me because his research is a good reason for me not to take a direction that seems the obvious route to outsiders but which is actually not very fruitful. He has made my own justifications much easier, especially when dealing with stuck-in-the mud types.

I also had great concern over another academic, in my home department, stealing one of my major discoveries. I have pressed to get this material published ahead of my original plans for this reason. It is now under review with a journal and that fact is well known in the department. My supervisor is the head of dept. and is very much in my corner as his apprentice, so I feel ok about this now.

I've managed these situations in an unofficial, non-confrontational way. It seems to me that official action is a political mine-feild and potentially destructive to ones career. I would be very interested to read alternative views on this subject, because, obviously, I don't know everything... But I hope I've helped in some way.

While official action may be potentially negative, I'd still like some sort of protection before I send my idea out to the supervisor. I'm just hoping there's some sort of way to copyright/provisionally patent the ideas in the proposal...

I've copyrighted creative writing projects the old fashioned way of posting the documents to myself by recorded delivery. I did quite a bit of reading around this and it seems that any document you write is automatically copyrighted to you but having proof of dates and indication of your authorship are needed for a legal process. So really a record of an email should do it. Although, this said, copyright did not deter the pilferer of my PhD research topic.

If it's an invention or scientific discovery then I should think the patents office would be the way to go. There is plenty of info on the web about how to patent - although I believe the process is expensive.

I think that Eska gave you excellent advice. I would also like to warn people from the dangers of disclosing their research by blogging.
You might want to read the following:

We tend to think that only not-very-clever students can do this, but I had a personal experience with a high profile academic publishing something from my MLitt thesis without reference.

I think my supervisor may have 'borrowed' my idea. Same hypothesis (relationship between two particular variables) being investigated, but in a different area. This supervisor is also very helpful, so I have no idea how to tackle this. Plus, we're talking about an idea, so plagiarism cannot be proved.

Well, my proposal is just that-a proposal. It's not an invention yet, so I can't patent it. I was just wondering if I could protect it so that the person to whom I'm sending it cannot turn me away and use my idea as his own and work on it. So, posting it to myself timestamped would work? How would I indicate my authorship?