February 24, 2011

German minister loses doctorate after plagiarism row

Germany's defence minister has been stripped of his university doctorate after he was found to have copied large parts of his work from others.
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, an aristocrat who lives in a Bavarian castle, admitted breaching standards but denied deliberately cheating.
Analysis revealed that more than half of his thesis had long sections lifted word-for-word from the work of others.
So far the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has stood by the minister.
The University of Bayreuth decided that Mr Guttenberg had "violated scientific duties to a considerable extent".
It deplored the fact that he had lifted sections of text without attribution.
Last week Mr Guttenberg said he would temporarily give up his PhD title while the university investigated the charges of plagiarism. He admitted that he had made "serious mistakes".
His thesis - Constitution and Constitutional Treaty: Constitutional Developments in the US and EU - was completed in 2006 and published in 2009.
Chancellor Merkel insisted on Monday that she was standing by her defence minister, who was seen as something of a rising star in her conservative coalition.
"I appointed Guttenberg as minister of defence," she told reporters.
"I did not appoint him as an academic assistant or doctor. What is important to me is his work as minister of defence and he carries out these duties perfectly."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Random Posts


  • Scientists informally intervene in cases of sloppy research - Ars Technica

    John TimmerMost people involved in scientific research are well aware of the big three ethical lapses: fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. These acts are considered to have such a large potential for distorting the scientific record that governments, research institutions, and funding bodies... READ MORE>>

  • Prof Faces Plagiarism Charge

    Shanghai Daily A university professor is at the center of a plagiarism scandal after he was accused of copying from books written by Western researchers in his doctoral dissertation.Zhu Xueqin, a history professor at Shanghai University, denied the online accusation after a newspaper report about t... READ MORE>>

  • Journals step up plagiarism policing

    Nature 466, 167 (2010), doi:10.1038/466167a Cut-and-paste culture tackled by CrossCheck software. Declan Butler Major science publishers are gearing up to fight plagiarism. The publishers, including Elsevier and Springer, are set to roll out software across their journals that will scan submitted pa... READ MORE>>

  • Plagiarism pinioned

    NATURE/EDITORIAL  doi:10.1038/466159b Published online 07 July 2010 There are tools to detect non-originality in articles, but instilling ethical norms remains essentialIt is both encouraging and disheartening to hear that major science publishers intend to roll out the CrossCheck plagiarism-sc... READ MORE>>

  • Academic corruption undermining higher education: Yau Shing-tung

    By Guo Jiaxue (HK Edition) Updated: 2010-06-02 07:38 In China, the number of published papers in scientific journals are a critical criterion determining a researcher's professional standing and suitability for promotion. Edmond Tang / China Daily Even at China's best universities plagiarism and fa... READ MORE>>

  • A CULTURE OF PLAGIARISM

    Setiono Sugiharto The Jakarta PostPublication Date: 18-02-2010 A recent report on plagiarism implicating a professor from a private university in Indonesia has set a bad precedent for the integrity of academic honesty.Alleged to have published a plagiarised article in this paper, this senior schola... READ MORE>>

  • 'Academic' humiliated U. of Tokyo

    The Yomiuri ShimbunTurkish national Serkan Anilir, recently stripped of the doctorate he obtained from the University of Tokyo over plagiarism and falsifying his resume, used that powerful badge of authority to take advantage not just of the institution that gave him the degree but of other universi... READ MORE>>

.

.
.

Popular Posts