How much are you controlled by your mentorship team when you have a career development award like a K01 or CDA? Can you say no to them when they want to add others to your paper if you did it all yourself or if they want to steal your ideas for other people? How much can they tell you what to do if you’re really uncomfortable with what they ask if you’re fully funding yourself but they’re listed as your mentors?
Comments
Advice-academia is (unfortunately) a very small club; best to accommodate some smaller things now and move on in the future; keep your sketchy mentor as an ally, not an enemy
So for adding as coauthors – ask that they review and provide input on manuscript
For your idea – let them have it, you’ll have 100 more; be sure to be coauthor on work
I had a K99/R00 at the end of my postdoc and the beginning of my independent career. I get along extremely well with my primary (postdoc mentor), and he (obviously) paid a significant role in the research during the last 6 months of my PhD (the K99 phase). Once I started the R00 phase, I almost never spoke to him about the project (we chat a lot about other stuff, though). The “co-mentor” that we recruited to strengthen the proposal was an mean old grump, and I don’t think I spoke to him once after the initial submission of the application.
This depends entirely on specific circumstances. I had a great relationship with my mentor. I took his advice to heart but also felt very comfortable disagreeing. Unless it required his resources he would provide advice but ultimately defer to me on “my” projects. I think this is generally how it is supposed to work?
In the end though, department culture matters, it depends HOW reliant on the mentor you are to conduct the work, and a million other things.
I think one of the strongest defenses from this is to have more than one mentor to keep one another in check. But also, I’ve never really had a “mentor” I’ve been doing stuff on my own this entire time. Even the “mentors” that I’ve had, they’ve never felt like they had that big of a pull because I was never very dependent on them. You play a role to help define the dynamic between yourself and others, so it’s important to see your own participation in that.