New engineering dean has two retractions for authorship manipulation

A newly appointed dean at the University of Guelph in Canada has had two papers retracted for “evidence of authorship manipulation.” 

Another article by the researcher, Moncef Nehdi, formerly of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, seems to match a paper that had its authorship advertised for sale, according to a post on PubPeer. 

Nehdi told Retraction Watch he stands by his group’s work in the two retracted papers, but agreed with the retractions because he thought the investigations “raised some valid concerns.” 

Nehdi began a five-year term as dean of the University of Guelph’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences on September 1, according to an announcement this spring. The announcement stated: 

A prolific author, Nehdi has written more than 470 research publications and was listed by Elsevier and the Shanghai Global Ranking in the world’s top 60 most impactful civil engineers. Nehdi is well positioned to advance U of G’s reputation as a leader in sustainability research with his expertise in sustainable construction, artificial intelligence and machine learning in civil engineering.

The University of Guelph has not responded to our request for comment. 

Last year, two Elsevier journals retracted articles on which Nehdi was the corresponding author. The notices, which were similar, began: 

This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief. Following receipt of a whistle-blower complaint, an investigation of this paper was conducted. The Editor-in-Chief no longer has confidence in the scientific integrity of this paper.

Each paper “exhibits evidence of authorship manipulation,” the notices stated. 

The notice for “Mechanical, thermal, durability and microstructural behavior of hybrid waste-modified green reactive powder concrete,” originally published in Construction and Building Materials in August 2022, continued: 

Changes in authorship were made to the paper during the review and revision process, in contravention of the journal policies on authorship changes. The journal apologises to readers for not having identified these changes at the time. Following correspondence with the authorship of this paper, questions regarding appropriate contribution of all co-authors are raised. Multiple authors admit not knowing the others and “never having collaborated”. One author identified their contribution as “XRD analysis”; none is reported in the paper. The corresponding author was unable to identify the laboratories at which all aspects of the experimental [sic] were conducted.

The six authors listed on the paper are affiliated with six different universities in five countries. The article has been cited 15 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

The other retracted article, “Alkali-activated fly ash concrete with untreated coal aggregate: Fresh- and hardened state properties,” appeared in Case Studies in Construction Materials in December 2022. It has only been cited by its retraction notice. 

“Seven co-authors were added to the paper during the review and revision process, in contravention of the journal policies on authorship changes,” according to the notice. It continued: 

In the course of the investigation two issues of potential data manipulation were also identified. When raw data was requested from the corresponding author, of the initial submission [not the corresponding author listed in the published version, but still a co-author] curated data was provided. The metadata on the curated data predates the reported conduct of the study by five years. Photos of test specimens provided as ‘proof’ the study was conducted were clearly of different dimension than those reported in the paper.

The corresponding author of the published paper is unable to provide more clarifying information and has indicated agreement with this retraction.

The 13 authors on the paper are affiliated with 12 different universities in 10 countries. 

Nehdi and his team “collaborate on research studies with international scholars when we believe that it brings a multi-disciplinary perspective to problem solving and enhances the research outcomes,” and “rely on their professionalism and work ethics,” he told us. “In each study, we collaborate, in good faith, and use our best judgement [sic] to ensure that the data is authentic, the scientific basis is robust, and that every co-author has significantly contributed to the work to be published.” 

Elsevier began scrutinizing Nehdi’s two retracted articles as it investigated all the papers of a coauthor who “was involved in data manipulation in various publications they co-authored with a reputed scholar in Europe, who is also the editor of a Q1 journal,” Nehdi told us.  

One of Nehdi’s coauthors, Arash Karimi Pour, listed at the University of Texas at El Paso, has lost 21 other papers, by our count. We previously reported on him as a coauthor of Jorge de Brito, a civil engineering researcher and professor at the University of Lisbon with more than a dozen retractions. 

“When approached about the issue, I recommended retracting both papers since I believe that retraction is better than keeping in the open literature publications that may have doubt about possible data manipulation or other ethical concerns,” Nehdi said. He continued: 

To be clear, I still believe that our work reported in both studies is sound, but I lost faith in the part of the work contributed by the said co-author, and thus I supported the retraction decisions. The partial evidence I had is that when I asked specific questions to my co-author that were conveyed to me by the journal, they did not produce consistent answers with what I have understood during the paper development and publication process. So, I reported the answers as is to the journals and thought retraction was warranted.

In September, scientific sleuth Nick Wise posted a comment on PubPeer about another of Nehdi’s articles: 

On the 1st of January 2022 an advert was placed on an Iranian Telegram channel offering authorship of a paper. The keywords are a match to this paper.

Wise included a screenshot of the advertisement. 

“I was not aware of this issue, and I have no good reason to doubt the scientific accuracy or ethical standards of the work,” Nehdi told us. “I would be interested to know more about where the information comes from regarding the paper potentially having been advertised as having authorship positions for sale. If there is reasonable doubt that the claim is true, I will take the initiative and ask the journal to retract it.” 

He concluded: 

Unfortunately, as very busy researchers who pursue quality work and abide by high ethical standards within an established culture of research excellence in our reputed institutions, we do not think about issues like these until they sadly happen. We have learned the hard way that collaborating with other scholars who are far away can create some vulnerably [sic]. Retracting those papers was an eye opener for me, and I personally have since been trying to learn from the experience to heighten the scrutiny of who we can collaborate with going forward and have declined numerous opportunities to collaborate on research studies for risk mitigation.

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