"You're on enough papers already" - upset friend, no idea how to help!

[SpencerSweetPeas]

A friend's boyfriend is a postdoc, and has just been told this by his supervisor. He's in a STEM subject (trying not to be too outing, but it's more T/E than 'pure' science) and does mainly computational modelling.

His supervisor has told two different collaborators to remove him from the author list and use different (and apparently inferior) models instead. The models had already been finished and sent, so it wasn't like he said he'd do them then hadn't.

Friend is very upset - the boyfriend is a visiting researcher in another country/different time zone etc at the moment so away from her as well as his home institution and supervisor. She said he was almost crying when he spoke to her. She's asked me whether it's normal or whether I knew what he should do (she isn't in academia, I'm a PhD student so although know a bit about it this is beyond me!).

I know I only have one side of the story, but surely that isn't normal?! I thought your supervisor would be pleased if you were doing well!

I presume the only thing to suggest is to speak to somebody higher up? Or do postdocs have a pastoral person? One thing I can't understand is why the collaborators have agreed to remove him - surely that should be their/their bosses decision?

Sorry, that was a bit epic! It's just I've always been lucky and found my institution very supportive and keen for you do collaborations etc, so I'm just a bit surprised to learn that things like this happen!

I don't have any great advice here, because technically, if they have removed his contribution to the papers, then they don't have to include him as an author. It's a very mean thing to do and suggest there's some nasty motivations around, which mean this post-doc isn't going to be somewhere your friend's boyfriend is going to want to stay long, as it sounds like the more senior person isn't invested in promoting their career. In terms of reporting them, they could- my own experience is that often junior staff often have right on their side, but that academic departments are very hierarchical and rarely stick their necks out for temporary junior staff, especially as here technically the papers will now not have his input (so this is not a case of stealing/misauthorship or anything). That said, I am not good at the politics side, and the friend's boyfriend will know if he has allies or anyone to talk this through with.

it s shitty, and shows poor foresight from the supervisor.
But if the BF is abroad and still has a UK boss (and hopefully mentor), he should speak to them and try to come back.

This kind of shit does happen - but mostly when there have been (in my experience) some fishy activities with the data [and late realization from the supervisor]. Another option is that the BF was the star child for a little while, and this made the others complain about favouritism.

I wonder if the supervisor is concerned that the postdoc won't get his regular work done, that he's being spread too thin, fingers in too many pies.

Coz otherwise it sounds outrageous, tbh. not typical at all, or maybe I'm just lucky to almost always work with people who are very generous at trying to share authorship.

Would using different models bring someone else in as a co-author? It may be that someone else needs publications for the REF, whilst the boyfriend already has enough.

We are still using the old REF guidelines, and under those, 1 person with 8 publications = 1 person and 4 publications in the REF, while 2 people with 4 publications each = 2 people and 8 publications in the REF. It's not fair, but strategically, it makes sense.

This would be something that he should complain about/consider moving to a different institution

This story is not taking place in the UK, so REF is not a factor. The UK is the only country that has something as insane as the REF.

Sorry to have not been back, but I'm glad you thought it seemed a bit unfair!

It isn't REF-related, although that would have been easier in some ways, at least it could have been explained!

It was sort of taken out of his hands - one of the other collaborators (same institution) on a paper went to the HoS and said he felt the first author was being pushed around by the supervisor. So he has to write a statement and it will be looked into. The HoS seems to be taking it seriously though (ethics were mentioned) so I think he feels a bit better now.

If I were him I would go to a different supervisor. Another option is to write a single author paper about his models, and this will allow people to reference his models as definitive rather than be a coauthor.

The supervisor could be being an ass, or might be thinking that too many co-authorships could make him look like a jobbing research assistant. I do suspect the former, as I know how weird academics can get when you start to be more recognised than they are in any circle - including something like at the uni coffee bar.. (especially the blokes)