A few years ago, Researcher A had worked in a research project in pharmaceutics and health sciences in the position of a coordinating research nurse. They also said they had performed the tasks of a junior researcher in the project. They suspected three people of an authorship violation: the head researcher of the research group in question, Doctoral Researcher B from University X, and Specialist Physician C, who led the research group. According to A, B and C had denied A access to co-authoring a new publication in the same field and excluded A from the research group at the same time.
The Rector of X had decided that a preliminary inquiry would not be launched, because the article which the notification of an alleged RI violation concerned had not been published, and as such, A's name had not been omitted from the article's list of authors. A was unhappy with the decision of not launching an RI process for the case.
After receiving the request for a statement, TENK asked the parties if the disputed manuscript, albeit not published, had already been sent to a potential publisher for peer review at the time when the Rector decided on the case. According to the responses, the manuscript had not been sent for peer review because it did not even exist.
In its statement, TENK declared that it can only take a stand on what has occurred, but not on intentions possibly expressed by a researcher. At a general level, TENK finds that a researcher's right to be acknowledged as the author of a scientific publication is not dependent on their employment relationship and does not expire even if the study or project, which the published results are from, has been concluded.
Since there was no reason to suspect an RI violation, the Rector of X was able to decide to not launch an RI process.