The president of an Iranian university and a colleague appear to have published the same microelectronics paper twice, according to allegations seen by Retraction Watch.
The articles, by Bahram Azizollah Ganji and Kamran Delfan Hemmati of Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, deal with the design of a new capacitive accelerometer with a high dynamic range and sensitivity. Both appeared online in 2020, first in the Slovenia-based Journal of Microelectronics, Electronic Components and Materials and later in the higher-impact Springer journal Microsystem Technologies. The former version has yet to be cited, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, while the latter has been cited twice.
The editors of Microsystem Technologies were made aware of the allegations on November 16 in an email that cited “significantly identical content” in the two papers. “Pretty much the entire introduction section and almost all figures are an exact copy from” the authors’ previous article, the email stated.
In a response shared with Retraction Watch, a Springer publishing assistant wrote on November 24:
I heard back from the Editors in Chief and they are all in agreement that this is a serious breach of ethical standards and violates copyrights laws. I am in contact with our Research Integrity Group daily and we are working to get this manuscript withdrawn.
The Microsystem Technologies article has not been retracted as of this writing.
The allegations first surfaced publicly in a LinkedIn post from November by the International Community of Iranian Academics. The post included pictures highlighting identical passages and figures in the two articles, prefacing them with the text, “Evidence of plagiarism in the work of Bahram Azizollah Ganji, current president of Babol Noshirvani University of Technology and one of the prominent faces of oppression in the Islamic Republic’s higher education.”
Retraction Watch has called the university and contacted both authors by email, but has not been able to reach them.
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