Academic affiliation: which to choose? I am actually working for two different universities in my country, and the problem is that they do not give too much support to academic research. I mean for paying the costs of tickets, travel expenses or accommodation when one paper get accepted for a conference.

I usually work as an independent researcher, but the problem that I have is that if I put my author affiliation as Independent researcher maybe I will be not be considered "serious" enough for the reviewing program committee of the conferences that I plan to submit my work.

Now what should I do? should I put the name of one of the universities that I am working at random, and at the end change my affiliation and put the name of the university that will give me the funds for the travelling expenses of the presentation?

What would we the best way to act in this way? I remember that for one paper that I was submitting, the Dean of my past faculty told me that he could give me the money, but if I put him like a co-author. Actually it was his way to get publications to his name without working on them. Of course, I did not accept that.

Any suggestion would be of great help

Thanks
My immediate reaction is to put them both on; It is not unusual to have two affiliations. I then mean to state "A and B" to show a shared affiliation. That way both departments could benefit from your publication. The question is then how to get the different departments to losen up their purses. In my system no such funding is typically given out by departments/university, one has to apply for money from different sources oneself. I could possibly convince my head to provide the money if the reason was particularly well deserving. So I cannot comment on how such support would be provided.

I would suggest communicationg with both univesities stating that you will publish the paper with them as an affiliation to see if anyone would provide funding. I would obviously put any funding source as my first affiliation afte the fact.

Finally, to get a request to put an extra name on the paper in order to get money sounds terrible, in fact unethical. It is of course easy to say that when you are not facing the situation so thumbs up for standing up to that behaviour.