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This question concerns the following situation commonly arising in academic research. Research is carried out in a lab which is funded by a grant. A grant comes from taxpayer money paid by a government funding agency to the university hosting the lab. The head of the lab is called a principal investigator (PI); they decide how to actually spend the money - whom to hire, what to procure etc.

It sometimes happens that the research is carried out by PI's subordinates without PI's direct involvement. When the research is published, normally only those who contributed intellectually to the research are listed as co-authors. Including someone who did not actually participate, e.g., because of their status, is called "guest authorship" and is considered unethical. However, in some fields it is somewhat common to also include the PI, with reasoning "because they allowed the research in their lab"/"because they provided the funding". Being an author is a significant perk, in terms of prestige and future career opportunities.

Could this be a crime? Could the PI be prosecuted on the ground that they received a personal favor in exchange for allocation of public money? Assume that they conducted a hire search for subordinate researchers who were supposed to come with their research proposals, and only hired those (and greenlighted their projects) who agreed give the PI a co-authorship of all their output. The PI didn't later contribute to the project, so would not warrant the co-authorship were they not the head of a lab. The research is still within the theme of the grant, so no misuse of public funds occurred.

Jurisdiction-wise, I'm mostly interested in EU and US.

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  • Authorship due to PI status is not considered unethical in many fields, that is a false generalization. While this is more appropriate for academia SE, you severely underestimate the time, effort and motivation it takes to get funding, including all the proposals written and rejected, and duties like reporting. Wait until you do it yourself, you write 20 pages over a few weeks, 3 months later, it comes back simply saying rejected along with 95% of the proposals, and that work serves no further purpose. It's unethical not to include that contribution.
    – user71659
    Commented Dec 12, 2023 at 20:58
  • @user71659 I'm not sure what any of that has to do with the legal implications.
    – bdb484
    Commented Dec 12, 2023 at 21:12
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    @bdb484 The practice described is ethical in the majority of fields and funding agencies, staffed by scientists who have been in the same position themselves, know this. It's a non-issue. It's only brought up by outsiders and junior researchers/students who are greedy about authorship. It's a problem invented by the OP.
    – user71659
    Commented Dec 12, 2023 at 21:21
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    I don't see how OP could have invented it if outsiders and Junior researchers and greedy students have long been raising the same issue, as you suggest.
    – bdb484
    Commented Dec 12, 2023 at 23:02
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    @Kostya_I The department chair is administrative. The PI is supervisory and thus qualifies. PI goes on ACS papers, I'm on at least two. And has been pointed out, that is not a legal question at all, if you're arguing about that, make a question in Academia SE.
    – user71659
    Commented Dec 13, 2023 at 0:05

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No. Grants generally require separate reports to the government.

PIs are responsible for submitting to the funding agency periodic and final reports which detail what the money was spent on and what specific contributions or discoveries were. Lying or including misleading information on these reports is a crime, in line with laws about submitting false information to the government. These reports may require detail down to the percentage of time/hour level and budget dollar, so they are not what is visible to the public.

There is no legal standard for who is entitled authorship on an academic paper. Even in academia itself, there is no universal standard and people have varying beliefs.

This question is flawed in claiming a PI is not entitled authorship for merely providing funding. Besides reporting and oversight of funds, which brings significant legal responsibilities, writing proposals takes a significant amount of time and effort. Proposals often have an acceptance rate in the single percentage points, and one is not rewarded for submitting a rejected proposal. There are significant funding and institutional politics that have to be carefully navigated.

What is proper is influenced by scientists who have worked in the process themselves, who staff funding agencies, so they have shared insights that outsiders and junior researchers do not.

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  • I don't see what any of this has to do with the question. False reporting may be a crime, but it is not the only possible crime related to grants, and not the one I'm asking about. While there may be some fields where providing funding is considered as meriting authorship (which I doubt), there are certainly some where this is not the case, and the premise stays valid, even if restricted to those fields.
    – Kostya_I
    Commented Dec 12, 2023 at 23:29
  • @Kostya_I You're imagining unethical behavior is a crime. Not only is it not illegal in itself, the behavior you're reporting isn't even unethical. You have to find a crime like theft, fraud or lying.
    – user71659
    Commented Dec 13, 2023 at 0:00
  • have you read the question? Receiving a bribe to hire someone to your lab/allow them to spend funding is a crime. So is (likely) doing it in exchange for non-monetary personal favor. Guest authorship is clearly an example of such favor.
    – Kostya_I
    Commented Dec 13, 2023 at 8:29

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