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? Someone suggested I mail a physical copy to myself. Would this work and, if so, how?


Thanks.

Having a paper trail (an online paper trail) that demonstrates the idea was yours gives you some recourse to action but as far as legally protecting a research proposal goes... that would be very difficult unless the idea was totally novel and not obvious given prior work in the field. It would be very easy for an expert in the field to claim they arrived at the idea independently and it would be on you to prove that they didn't.

Really you'd need a signed, dated and witnessed log of how you developed your idea and I doubt you have that. Besides, what's going to happen if the professor used your idea and you took legal action? Can you demonstrate that the idea was going to make a stack of money that you would miss out on?

Just preface the correspondence with "I trust this will remain confidential." and hope for the best.