Why use 'advisor' or 'supervisor' instead of just 'collaborator'? This bugs me a bit. I understand that technically the advisor or supervisor relationship may be a bit different from the more senior-level collaborations, but I can't help but think when I see people say &quot;thanks to my supervisors/advisors for their help with this project&quot; (i.e. on Twitter press-releases of research, at the beginning/end of presentations at conferences) that it is a bit infantilising... I am not suggesting it is a particularly important problem, but from many PhD students I know and from my own personal experience, the supervisor role can certainly be very much equivalent to normal collaboration between other academics. I think it makes a PhD student sound more independent and capable if they were to refer to their co-authors on papers published during their PhD as their collaborators - even if they are in fact their supervisor/advisor.
Keen to hear others thoughts!
I think you're correct that the supervisor role can be equivalent to normal collaboration in that the student will bring their own unique ideas, knowledge, and experience to build on a mutual project collaboratively. However, where I think there is an unavoidable difference (at least, in every student I have met including myself) is the conception of viable projects. In my field I've never heard of a student (masters or PhD) conceiving from the ground-up their entire project. They're always built from a project advertised to prospective students, or developed with the supervisor (often from previous work) where a research relationship already exists.
As a student, you're learning to become an independent researcher. This means learning what is and isn't scientifically interesting and viable, how to search the literature and theory for relevant information, etc.. This is what a supervisor is teaching, and this is a very specific relationship that isn't properly conveyed with &quot;collaborator&quot;.
This distinction is most important when there are multiple co-authors on a paper, including co-authors that are not the supervisor. The non-supervisor co-authors fit the description of collaborators and still should be described as such, no matter their academic &quot;rank&quot;.