publications - A university does not allow its employees to use its affiliation on papers done in spare time; how normal is that?

Together with a colleague from a different university, I wrote a paper that has passed peer review in a respectable journal and is currently in press. The topic of the paper is very far removed from our usual research areas; let's say that my colleague is a chemist but the paper is about history (all details changed). We collaborated and wrote the paper in our spare time.

Now my colleague spoke to some university administrators and was told not to use university's affiliation on any papers that are written in the spare time / are outside of his or her direct responsibilities. As a result, my colleague wants to remove their affiliation from the paper.

I should add that my colleague is a senior researcher employed by the university, and that it is quite a well-known university in Western Europe.

My question is: How weird is that? Is such a policy common?

I was under impression that universities are only happy when their affiliation is used, and unhappy if it is not used.

Answer

Let's call a spade a spade here:

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  This policy is not common. I have never heard of a faculty member in a developed country being dictated to in which area to publish or being limited in using their university affiliation only when publishing in certain areas and not in others.

  
  


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  This policy is not logical. Let's see, who is more competent to judge if a faculty member is qualified to produce high quality research on a subject? (a) The faculty member and the editor and referees of the journal they submitted their paper to; or (b) some clueless university administrator?

  
  

  Simply put, this policy ignores centuries of history that have developed academia into the bastion of creativity and free thought that it is, and proved that the academic model is one of the best models humanity has discovered for creating new knowledge. (Yeah, yeah, to the cynics among you, go ahead and feel free to kill me for this comment, and bring up everything that's wrong with academia nowadays...).

  
  


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  This policy is not surprising. This story establishes that there is at least one university somewhere in Western Europe that has at least one policy-maker who is, let's say, not the sharpest tool in the shed. I am shocked, I tell you. Shocked.