Similar working paper by senior professors, should I worry?

Question

I am a PhD student who just finished my master’s degree. I had a master’s thesis which can be further developed during my PhD studies, but recently I found that some senior professors are also working on similar topics. Their working paper is not available online, and I only saw an abstract in a very recent online workshop after I submitted my thesis. My thesis is available online now. I have courteously reached out to one of the professors and sent him my paper. He also kindly replied and compared our work. To be fair, their work is more sophisticated than mine, and they are ready to submit it to a journal for review. My questions are: can I continue to work on my project or should I just give it up since someone else have similar ongoing work? Also, since the professors have worked on their project for two or three years and probably presented it in other occasions (which I can’t find any trace online though), should I worry about the novelty in my thesis?

Answer 1

It seems likely that the others will beat you to publication of something similar to what you might do. Whether that matters or not for purposes of your degree depends on your advisor and your university. Often enough, parallel work is acceptable as long as your contributions are known. So, you need to have a serious conversation with your advisor.

One option (advisor permitting) is to collaborate with the others, carving out some niche in the overall problem that forms the basis of your dissertation. Another is to try to leapfrog over the work of the other group, extending what you and they have done, rather than just trying to follow them. A third option is to try to finish quickly, before they publish, but being sure that you don't plagiarize based on what you have learned.

Abandoning might be necessary, but it should be the last option. Even then, you may have learned enough about the general area of your study that you can recover quickly enough.

But have a serious talk with your advisor so that you know the options. Getting scooped can be, but isn't always, devastating. Good luck.

Answer 2

This is definitely an area where your advisor can and should guide you.

In addition to this answer's very good suggestions, if you develop a good working relationship with the professor who has mailed you back, you might even go so far as to ask that person to be on your committee. But that's a thought to keep in the back of your mind for a future date.

In general, though, different groups working on similar topics don't always publish identical results. You've seen this for yourself, where your main arguments and methodologies are different from the other group's. A good question to ask your advisor's opinion is, "Are the differences here significant enough to warrant separate publications?" They might well be, which would be a good sign for continuing your work.

Answer 3

I think you would have been wise to have not engaged directly with he other group if your plan was to continue on the MS topic. Now you have two things to worry about: the development of this topic and managing your relations with the other group. There is a lesson to be learned from this.

That said, you seem to think that you can still pursue your own approach if it is adjudged worthy by your superviser -- and by yourself even before you present the plan to the superviser. Worthiness is by the usual doctorate definition: originality, independency and substantiveness.

. . . and I am not sure if they are willing to cite my thesis when they publish.

I doubt if they will cite your thesis when they publish given that they are at it for 3 years - not unless it buttresses a weaker part of their own argument and that aspect of your work is explicitly stated in your now online MS thesis.

It’s just that I might not be able to pursue the idea further . . .

Does this mean that you are using aspects of the other group's work as jumping off points for your own putative PhD program ? If so, then while this would not academically prevent you from launching your own studies, it would make it less likely that they would not also be done by the other group as well. So a decision to invest 3+ years of work into such a program has to be seriously considered.

If there is a sort of Holy Grail in this research field, be mindful that only one knight can find a Holy Grail - all the other seeker-knights will be disappointed.

Not knowing what the topic is, how rich a field it may be, etc makes it impossible for us here to advise you to do anything more than to have a frank discussion with your current superviser on all this. I was struck by the absence of any reference your own superviser's view in your original posting.

Answer 4

I don't think that the outcome of a master thesis has to be competitive with results from a group of senior researchers. Congratulations that you have found similar results, this shows that you are in a good position to make relevant research (with regard to your PhD thesis and to your research community).

You have to mention the results from the other groups in a potential publication. Highlight matching results and differences in the approaches.

For virtually every PhD thesis, both student and his/her advisor are constantly monitoring for other groups publishing papers in the same area. You always include the possibility to adjust your research idea - either because others seems to be too close or (more often) because your idea does not lead to results.