The complainant, A, suspected that Doctoral Student B had misled the scientific community and exaggerated their merits in a situation where they were selected into the research group of Assistant Professor C. According to A, joint articles in which B was involved as a co-author contained poor-quality texts, as well as texts purchased from ‘paper mills.’
The RI process carried out by the university revealed that B had been selected in an international call for applications for doctoral students. The information provided by B in the application process was accurate with regard to publications. B had allegedly served as a referee for researchers who were their colleagues. Even though the ex-colleagues no longer worked together at the time of the assessment, the university reminded B not to assess researchers that are too close to them.
A also suspected that C had inappropriately exerted influence in the situation where B was recruited to the research group. In A's view, C should have rejected B's application due to the apparent shortcomings in the application documents. However, the RI investigation showed that B had been selected by a selection committee and C had not participated in assessing B's application.
According to the 2012 RI guidelines, exaggerating one’s scientific merits falls under the category of other irresponsible practices, while misleading the research community falls under the category of disregard for good research practices. In order to conclude that an RI violation has occurred with regard to the aforementioned, the criteria for the allegation must be met, the allegation and the violation must be serious, and the violation must involve gross negligence and irresponsibility. As such, TENK agreed with the university's assessment of the course of events and the decision, according to which neither B nor C was guilty of RI violations. – TENK does not comment on its statements on the selection of doctoral students.