A, a former doctoral student of a university presented the allegation that B, a researcher who had worked with him/her on a research project in the natural sciences, had plagiarised the former doctoral student’s Master’s thesis in his/her licentiate and doctoral theses. In the RCR process it turned out that B had plagiarised the thesis both directly and indirectly on several occasions. During the process, the university’s publication practices were investigated more extensively, but even though they were found to be unclear in many ways, no concrete proof of a RCR violation could be presented after the preliminary investigation.
A alleged, however, that the RCR process differentiating the two matters had not been completely impartial. The university did not initiate an investigation proper to conclude whether A should have been cited as a co-author in the conference papers. A also complained about the long duration of the investigation. In total, the process including two RCR investigations had lasted about 13 months.
TENK concluded that it was justified to process the two cases separately owing to the scope and quality of the matter. The processes were targeted at different research projects and concerned different people. Moreover, TENK concluded that considering the circumstances, the preliminary investigation had been conducted in a reasonable time scale.
However, as the parties had very differing views concerning the course of events, it would be beneficial to all parties to include in the investigation impartial experts from outside the investigating organisation. Therefore, TENK concluded that an RCR investigation proper was necessary.