A university dean is being investigated for plagiarism following our coverage of accusations against him, a Bulgarian newspaper reported last month.
The Academic Ethics Commission in Bulgaria has launched an investigation into Milen Zamfirov, dean of the faculty of educational sciences at Sofia University, Dnevnik reported February 25.
The accusations concern a 2021 paper he wrote with his colleague Margarita Bakracheva, “In Search of Integrativity of Sciences: the Principle of Supplementarity in the Story of Pauli and Jung.” As we reported in December 2024, the paper “seems to have significant overlap” with other sources.
Bakracheva told us at the time the literature was “correctly referenced” at the end of each paragraph; however, experts we spoke to did not agree.
After Dnevnik asked the Ministry of Education and Science about our post, the Ministry said they were looking into the researcher’s work.
In a January 28 email, Zamfirov requested an “official plagiarism report” from us.
Iliana Mirtscheva, editor-in-chief of the journal that published the paper, reiterated this request. In her email, dated February 9, Mirtscheva requested “documents on which you base your claims.” (Prior to publishing our December story, a PDF of the allegations was included in an email to the coauthors.)
In May, Zamfirov received a Pythagoras Science Award, honoring him as an “Experienced Scientist in Social Sciences and the Humanities.”
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