University orders PhD supervisor to retract paper that plagiarized his student

A researcher at the University of Newcastle in Australia plagiarized a former student’s thesis, according to a summary of a university investigation obtained by Retraction Watch.

Andy Eamens, who at least until recently was an agronomy researcher at Newcastle, published a paper in 2019 that included work by Kate Hutcheon, whose PhD work he supervised, without any credit. Hutcheon, who earned her PhD in 2017, contacted the journal, Agronomy, an MDPI title, in November 2019. 

The journal, Hutcheon told Retraction Watch, “forwarded a copy of my complaint directly to my PhD supervisor (without my consent). Thankfully they also forwarded me a copy of his response.” In what we found a bit confusing, to say the least, Eamens wrote, in part:

I can confirm that the images presented in Figures 1A, 1C and 1D were generated by Kate during her PhD tenure under my supervision at the University of Newcastle. Kate had previously provided these images at my request for my use in an invited oral presentation at the 2016 ComBio Conference (Brisbane Convention Centre, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, October 3-7, 2016); a presentation in which Kate’s work and contribution was duly acknowledged. The images have been taken from this presentation and have neither been “directly copied” nor “plagiarised” from Kate’s thesis. Indeed all project work outlined either in our manuscript or in Kate’s thesis was conducted in my laboratory, as part of a program of research that I developed, and which was funded by monies solely secured by me. I therefore fail to see how I have ‘plagiarised’ any of the work detailed in our manuscript. 

The journal concluded:

We feel sorry about this authorship dispute, but we would recommend that you may communicate with the authors now for a solution at the moment.

In December 2019, Hutcheon lodged a formal complaint with Newcastle’s research integrity office. In March 2020, she “received an email saying the preliminary assessment had completed and the matter had been referred for investigation,” and in April 2021, she “received an email saying that the investigation found several breaches of the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research and recommended the paper be promptly retracted…The University asked Dr Eamens to submit the retraction request himself.”

In a letter to Hutcheon, Mark Hoffman, the university’s deputy vice-chancellor (Academic) and vice-president nominated responsible executive officer said that:

breaches of Responsibilities 14, 15, 21, 22, 23, 25 and 27 of the [Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research] Code have occurred. 

Those breaches include failures to:

• Support a culture of responsible research conduct at their institution and in their field of practice.
• Provide guidance and mentorship on responsible research conduct to other researchers or research trainees under their supervision and, where appropriate, monitor their conduct. 
• Adopt methods appropriate to the aims of the research and ensure that conclusions are justified by the results.
• Retain clear, accurate, secure and complete records of all research including research data and primary materials. Where possible and appropriate, allow access and reference to these by interested parties.
• Disseminate research findings responsibly, accurately and broadly. Where necessary, take action to correct the record in a timely manner.
• Ensure that authors of research outputs are all those, and only those, who have made a significant intellectual or scholarly contribution to the research and its output, and that they agree to be listed as an author.
• Cite and acknowledge other relevant work appropriately and accurately

The letter continues:

Based on the Investigation Panel recommendations, corrective actions are to be implemented in response to the findings. The corrective actions include: 

• prompt request for retraction of the Publication and update of the researchers’ research profiles; 

• audit of laboratory practices; 

• research integrity mentoring and training; and

• supervisor education. 

The Investigation Panel made further recommendations that the University will be reviewing in full, relating to the introduction of laboratory notation guidelines, ensuring the effectiveness of internal research integrity training, and reviewing information provided to higher degree by research candidates and supervisors regarding intellectual property. 

The paper has yet to be retracted. Eamens, who did not respond to a request for comment, no longer appears to be affiliated with the university.

Update, 9/16/21, 1200 UTC: Newcastle confirmed that Eamens is no longer working there, but did not provide the circumstances of his departure.

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