During my PhD I made a very cool theoretical finding, which I happily shared with my supervisor despite he was never coming to the lab and had basically abandoned us. My finding was also diametrically opposed to anything he had ever worked in.
Anyway, he was super enthusiastic about my finding and suggested patenting. But then he became even more bully and violent than usual. Lots of bad things happened, and he hijacked our patenting efforts only to kill them.
This week, someone leaked an email where he's talking to a foreign company and they are setting up a joint spin off to develop this finding. I will report him for stealing IP from myself and from the University that hosts my PhD, but I think this will get nowhere given previous experiences with bully reports filled by angry students and postdocs.
I am determined to at least set up a group myself to continue with my ideas. To test the waters, I have applied to a first tier German university, and I got an assistant professor position. However, their physics labs in my niche are not well equipped, and without a starting package and lots of grants I will get nowhere. I believe this was good to gain a bit of confidence that I can put together a credible research plan that can be liked and accepted by some big names in the field, though.
Where can I pursue my ideas more freely? German academia is a bit rigid, and they will only give me very modest funds until I become more senior. Hard to compete. Ivy Leagues? West Coast? Oxbridge? China and other BRICS countries offering generous starting packages to get up and running?
Any related experiences? I have a PhD from a nice institution, which opens some doors due to obsession with brands, and a few good papers (Phys. Rev. Lett. and Nature Physics) aside from that finding. So it's feasible, but I know the academic market is very tough. I can bring in some promises of future IP, which I believe was what made my application to that German place attractive.
Submitted February 01, 2022 at 02:07AM by throwaway240798207
via reddit https://ift.tt/95qOAdeZr