Have you ever encountered reviewers working in the same field as yours, who reviewed your research and later on you found out that reviewer published the same research as yours?
I have not encountered such problem. But it happens, then it is unethical.
There might be a thin line between the every-day exchanges of ideas on the one hand, and a blatant case of phishing on the other. At least it may not be very easy to detect and prove that what happened with that research idea spelt out in a seminar was a theft: quite often at a seminar, say, there may be a very open discussion on future research possibilities, some of which several scientists in that room could actually start developing immediately. Now I have very seldom heard of a scientist in the audience taking those scribbled texts and formulas on the blackboard, and run with it, developing those formulated aides on her/his own. But I bet is has happened.
I think it happens more often with referee reports: someone reads a manuscript for a journal, finds a glitsch, or a "better" way of doing it, asks the editors to reject it, and borrows/steals part of the work to develop a variation for himself/herself. The fact that we hear it seldom may be an indication that the field we're in does not have a terrible problem. Or something worse ... that the literature is so vast so that no-one notices at all! :-)
I faced this for one of my research proposal submitted for funding, but have no proof, can't do anything.
This is hard to tell if the review is double-blind. But I have a strong suspicion that ideas from a paper of mine were once stolen. The paper was delayed in the peer review process for more than two years and finally rejected by the editor, in spite of the fact that all three reviewers were positive (Accept, Minor Revisions, Major Revisions). I suspect that it was the editor who took some ideas and published them.
I saw my conference paper was published in a reputed journal by a famous researcher.
Horst: have you done a google search to see if that is what happened?
Michael Patriksson I know the other paper and the similarity is more conceptual. In other words the two papers are about the same topic and the authors did not use any "copy and paste" from our paper. The paper that I co-authored just would have been a big competitor in the field if it would have appeared first. I do not have any proof so I will not make any allegations and neither mention the paper nor the journal or the editors. It is just very weird if a paper gets rejected after two years with three positive reviews (why do we need a peer review process in the first place if the editor overrules all three reviewers?) and one single round of review took more than one year, in spite of the journal having a policy of allowing for a maximum of six months. In other words we needed to wait more than 12 months for a couple of paragraphs of feedback. This is definitely strange and unprofessional, especially since this was a timely topic.
I was suspicious about one idea stolen from one paper of mine, but I cannot give any proof especially the manuscript was rejected due to ridiculous reasons. The peer review is somehow unfair and it's difficult or impossible to appeal especially after a long reviewing process and a rejection decision.
I've read some conclusions of mine, even sentences/paragraphs copy-pasted from my PhD thesis, where the first author was one of directors...Good luck to all...
I heard about this before maybe it's right. But I have a question, how do you know the reviewers who were reviewed your manuscript?
I have published 4 papers but in all cases the editor in chief didn't reveal the reviewer's names and I have no idea who reviewed my papers!!!
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