I want to apologize in advance; this will be a somewhat long post with some
personal thoughts wrapped in questions.
I'm not (so) far from completing my PhD and I started to think about building up my reputation as a (social) scientist. Unfortunately my dissertation theme as well as my scientific curiosity does not tend toward "popular & sexy" themes, so I have difficulties with finding senior co-authors for future research projects. I do not really need a co-author and I'm perfectly comfortable with writing solo-authored papers (I went well beyond my program's requirements in that) but i must admit that this practice have a lot of drawbacks.
First, I was not able to get adequate professional opinion about my thoughts and writing before peer review (I must note that in my country there are senior social scientists with very few or no experience with the system of peer review of international journals, not to mention academic ELF competency, knowing about current scientific literature & new results etc.).
Second, I was not able to start networking. Co-authors and common interests
would have provided a good opportunity, which I missed completely.
So I was thinking about the legit modes of finding co-authors for my unsubmitted manuscripts, or for completely new projects (which, I fear to state so, but must fall within my fields of interests). For beancounting and prestige reasons it would be ideal if I could find senior researchers from Western-European or American institutions. How to start contacting senior researchers? Should I simply email them about my plans, or ask someone who they know to recommend me? I can not afford to go on international conferences too often (~1 per year) so I can not see other option than cold-emailing everyone, but this could quickly turn to a spam campaign in the eyes of some, including myself.
I also thinked about posting a message on freelancer sites like Elance or Odesk, looking after co-authors with a degree. Their job would be to write an additional chapter to my existing manuscript, or revising it critically for important intellectual content and to agree with submitting the manuscript as a co-author for publication. Would that bring up ethical problems? I'm not sure about that; after all, they will be credited as co-authors.
So basically, I'm just curious about how to start contacting others, keeping in mind that I need them as co-authors in order to build connections and look good in the eyes of my (national) institution's administration. Is that a wicked way of thinking about co-authorship as a currency and should I abandon it, waiting for the opportunities to come up naturally? I can do that. In fact I would be much happier if such connections came up naturally, and would become a source of mutual intellectual enrichment. But if there are rules and criterias for academic advancement, and higher education institutions or grant committees evaluate one higher if (ceteris paribus) they look at one's CV/pub.list and see proof for international co-operation and connections, than why should I not seek for these
"assets" strategically?
Adding to my first response, please note that you can certainly approach colleagues to critically read your manuscript(s) for comments and advise. You can ask for such help from your peers without offering coauthorship. Acknowledging such support at the end of the paper is a nice and reasonable gesture.
The title of your question makes me cringe - coauthors are not a commodity you can simply pick and choose to add to your papers, and there are clear ethical rules what involvement merits a coauthorship. Simply asking somebody to be a coauthor on a near-finished paper is unethical for both persons involved.
Coauthorship starts with a collaboration, which in time may lead to the cowriting of a paper! If you go to an international conference every year, this should have given you an opportunity to start collaborations or at least helped you create networks - that's what conferences are all about ;-)
In your situation, don't forget to weigh in the merits of publishing single-author papers. Although I usually don't consider this a major merit in natural sciences, many of my peers do.
My reply is too long to fit into this little RG box, so I will send you RGmail. {Scrolling? What's that?}
If you can publish your work alone (if your papers are good enough), you do not necessarily have to find co-authors for your papers. A real co-author would also want to change something in your work, not just add a name (although you can probably find several people like that, too). It would make sense to find somebody who could e.g. add data from another country or who could rewrite the theory part using a different angle. If you wish to find such people, go to conferences, visit their lectures... sometimes it is also fine to send e-mails to some people who have similar interests (e.g. whose works do you usually cite: maybe somebody of these authors can become your co-author).
Adding to my first response, please note that you can certainly approach colleagues to critically read your manuscript(s) for comments and advise. You can ask for such help from your peers without offering coauthorship. Acknowledging such support at the end of the paper is a nice and reasonable gesture.
@Janos, You have got good answers. I do understand Your position and I was very familiar with! So, You do not have to apologize for question asked! In many countries that was common practice! So, follow the instructions from previous comments and fight for your place in science community with respect to the moral standards and ethics! Regards!
Interesting question. Authorship is considered by many as a currency, but not in the way your are pointing, but is not uncommon that the head of a department (or similar) ask for authorship in order to not interfere with your budget, your ideas, your work, etc. In this case you are not talking about this, you are talking about “enrolling” coauthors. It is quite peculiar that if you are starting to build your reputations you ask for coauthors that MUST collaborate with you in your field of interest. My advices is find someone who is close enough to your interest, with a very well established reputation and if it is possible, look for a grant to stay for some time as a postdoc with that person. That will give you the chance to expand your interests, and certainly will give you name and reputation within your field. Then you can lead whatever topic you want, no matter how un-sexy your ideas are.
Thank you for your comments.
@Ernesto: In my country, postdoc grants are almost out of reach for the majority of soft scientists, for various reasons but mainly 1.) universities very rarely offer postdoc grants and positions in those areas 2.) most of us can not compete scientometrically with hard scientists or colleagues who work closer to hard science fields, like mathematical statisticians or computer logicians (and oc committees evaluate all applicants by the same standards). Nevertheless it is a good suggestion, i will give it a try next year.
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