🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <31BFB24C.405F@ix.netcom.com>, Jane Harper <jharper@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> I spent 10 quarters in the PhD program from UC San Francisco.  My 
> adviser and I came to a very contentious parting, and I left UC.  Today 
> I opened the alumni magazine and discover that this former adviser has 
> been funded for a pilot study with exactly the same title as my 
> dissertation proposal!!!
> 
> Is this common practice?
> Is it ethical?
> Is it legal?
> 
> I'm fit to be tied.
> 
> Jane Harper, MS, RN, CCRN

I am a little unclear about the exact situation you describe.  If you
mean that they wrote a grant about your dissertation proposal while
you were in their lab, I don't think you have much of a leg to stand
on.  If your advisor was paying your way through the PhD program and
your dissertation proposal was written about a topic which was in line
with your advisors area of interest, you'll have a difficult time
convincing anyone that it was your idea in the first place.
   It's a sad reality in science that, until you are completely
independent, your ideas will generally be attributed to your advisor,
PI, Boss or whatever you want to call him/her.  Then even when you are
completely independent, your university will own all the stuff that
you bought with grants you got (intellectual property as well in many
cases).  Better PI's will attribute ideas to the individuals who came
up with them, but they are not under any obligation to do so.
   On the other hand, you could take it as a compliment (if immitation
is the sincerest form of flattery) and it got funded to boot.  It must
have been a good idea, and you'll have others in the future.  I think
its best to move on, but I could be wrong.

						Regards,	SVEN