Please tell me if this is wrong.
I work at a university where i can only get funding to attend a conference if i am the first author on a submission. I have one project to submit to an upcoming conference. I would like for my student to have the opportunity to present the poster as that would look good for them on their CV. But if I submit the poster with them as first/presenting author, I don’t get the funding to attend the conference at all. Would it be unethical to submit the poster with myself as first author so that I can get the funding to attend, then have my student be the one who leads the poster presentation and let them list themselves as first author of the poster on their cv with some asterisk and footnote saying that we were both presenting author? My university does not fund students regardless of where they fall in the author list so the student is not getting funding either way.
How have yall approached similar situations
Comments
in my field (chemistry), conference is really not nothing much, you can do pretty much whatever, no one really cares, conference itself means more for networking, job hunting, and interacting for more ideas, inspiration, etc.
on resume, conferences are literally nothing.
as a recruiter a few times now, publication is more important for screening candidates
I’m leaning towards yes, it’s unethical either way, but where does this leave your student in terms of funding to attend the conference?
I’ve seen and had conferences ask if the first author is the presenting author, and seen dozens of posters presented by middle or even last authors. So- ethical to have your project (which makes you first author) and having a middle author present is ethically fine.
I wouldn’t advise misrepresenting the poster/presentation on any CVs, though. So long as your university policies support the first author *and* the presenting author getting travel funding, great! In my experience, only the presenting author gets the funding, though.
As far as CV notation, a “*-presenting” explanation on the CV under the poster citation should me more than sufficient. But only on the one who presented. And not a “both presenter” if you don’t both present. (Which would be the thing that raises eyebrows, imo)
You’re basically talking about defrauding your own university here. Whatever the merits of doing so, they’ve made a decision to fund staff attendance at conferences but not student attendance. You can’t just take the money they give you for one purpose and apply it for a different purpose.
* (Unless they are willing to fund you BOTH to go to the conference, so long as you are first author. That would be weird, but sometimes bureaucracy is like that. In that case just keep the authorship consistent, but the student puts it on their resume as co-first author & presenter).
I don’t know the rules for this specific conference, but I doubt it would be an issue after the fact. Finding creative ways to work around bureaucratic stupidity is just a universal tenant of academia that anyone who’s been through the PhD process understands. If anything, a mentor going to bat for their student should be a positive. I say go for it. For a CV, I would mark it as co-first authors with your student as the presenter.
If this was a publication, would you have been listed as the first author? If so, then yes, you can submit the poster with you as the first/lead author. There’s nothing unethical about it. Having the second or third or nth or second-last or corresponding author presenting posters at conferences is not uncommon.
For your student, on their CV/resume in the future they would list out the exact author order (i.e. your name first, their name somewhere down the line) but have some kind of note indicating that they were the presenting author.
There is a record of the order of authors in the conference program. I would not encourage the student to change that order. Someone might look it up.
Nobody cares who presents a poster and where they are in the author lineup.
If you are faculty, a poster has no value. For a student it still does, so they should be first author.
I can appreciate why you would want to attend the conference and have the university pay for it. But what keeps you from having a different presentation? As faculty, posters mean nothing, and a student poster means even less.
How about shared first authorship? Asterix on both names, and say equal contribution, list yourself first. That way you can even “legally” list either author first on cv/online. This is assuming the student doesn’t mind. In any case I’d discuss with them to make sure they don’t feel bad about it.
If the abstracts are published then you can’t let your student list themselves as first author on their CV, as anyone finding the abstract will assume they changed the order themselves to look better