Pakistan vice-chancellor among authors in retracted paper

Sometimes, imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery. Ask Farukh Iqbal. Earlier this year, Iqbal, of the department of chemical and environmental engineering at RMIT University, in Melbourne, Australia, was alerted to a recent paper in the journal Fuel that cited a 2020 article he’d written with some colleagues. Iqbal read the paper and realised with dismay that not only was his work – which included parts of his thesis – cited, it was plagiarised, reports Retraction Watch.

“I immediately asked the corresponding and collaborating authors of the paper about it but got a harsh reply in response. Then I wrote to the Fuel journal which retracted the paper in June after a long investigation,” said Iqbal.

Compounding the problem, Iqbal said, was the list of authors, which included Muhammad Suleman Tahir, the vice-chancellor at Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology in Pakistan. “This story is interesting and different from similar stories because the first author … of the plagiarised paper is a sitting vice-chancellor of a public university in Pakistan and corresponding authors are heads of their departments. This thing puts a serious concern about research ethics violation by the head of institutes who are supposed to be responsible for the implementation of research integrity in their teaching institutes. It is also points out the abuse of power to steal students’ work and use it for personal benefits,” Iqbal told Retraction Watch. Tahir did not respond to requests for comment.
Full report on the Retraction Watch site