A scientist in Japan has lost her doctoral degree from Kyoto University after an investigation determined that she had plagiarized in her thesis.
According to the university, Jin Jing, who received her degree in September 2012 in human and environmental studies, has become the first person at the institution to have a doctorate revoked. In a statement about the move, Kyoto University president Nagahiro Minato said:
This time, an unprecedented situation occurred in which the doctoral degree awarded by the university on September 24, 2012 was found to be fraudulent (plagiarism), the degree was canceled, and the diploma was returned.
This fraud is diverted from the content of the academic dissertation published in the bulletin journal that has already been recognized as “plagiarism”, which is a fraudulent act in research activities, in Chapter 4 of all five chapters of the doctoral dissertation. It was done. It is an act that is never allowed to cite the research results, ideas, etc. that are the achievements of other researchers in this case and pretend to be their own research achievements. It is extremely regrettable that the diploma was canceled and the diploma was returned.
At our university, we take this fact seriously and strengthen the education of research ethics and research integrity as a higher education institution that plays an important role in developing doctoral human resources with high research ethics. I will do it.
We couldn’t find contact information for Jing, who does not appear to have any publications to her name.
In another case, Tokyo Medical and Dental University last month revoked a 2019 graduate’s PhD because the cell lines used in her thesis work were found to have been contaminated. There was no finding of misconduct in that case, and a paper based on the thesis was retracted.
Last week, we reported that a university in China stripped a scientist of their degree for using a paper mill to write their thesis. And last month, we reported on a university in Japan that revoked a PhD for plagiarism of brief passages.
Hat tip: Lemonstoism, author of World Fluctuation Watch
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That’s brutal, revoking a degree over cell line contamination. Retracting a paper, certainly. Perhaps delaying tenure or the like. But revoking a degree? Harsh
I agree. Are we missing something? No misconduct was found. Why revoke their degree for that?
Agreed! Too harsh.
I feel like if the paper wasn’t retracted and there was only a minor figure problem in the thesis, the degree wouldn’t be retracted.
Because that guy’s paper was retracted, and right now it is somehow an academic “scandal” in this world, so I believe that’s the reason. The thesis or dissertation is all full of tiny mistakes but nobody would really read it.
“This time, an unprecedented situation occurred in which the doctoral degree awarded by the university on September 24, 2012 was found to be fraudulent (plagiarism), the degree was canceled[…]”
I can’t understand why people resort to plagiarism. A self respecting researcher, journalist or writer of anything destined for publication would show his or her incompetence by copying from someone else without giving credit to that person. Wouldn’t you want to demonstrate by resorting to original writing what a serious, cool, clever and hard thinking productive person you are? Even if that writing is only modest or worse, you can still claim it as the fruit of your deepest thoughts. Plagiarism is self deception even if it is never discovered. It is so easy to produce a genuine text. Almost as easy as copying and pasting another person’s text. I’d rather write my own text (even if it doesn’t rise much beyond drivel) than having to experience the horrible loss of face once the plagiarism is detected.