Source | Ruge Classroom
Edit | Academic Jun
Recently, according to Jieheliu report, the former Professor Zhang Yuqing, a graduate student who had graduated for 4 years in 2020, was reported by his former Professor Zhang Yuqing from the School of Chemical Engineering of Tianjin University, and His fake paper was withdrawn by the editor-in-chief last Friday. However, it is not yet known whether this will be the beginning of the withdrawal of his fake paper.
Image source: @梦歌
Less than a week after the report incident that year, RSC Advance announced that it would launch an investigation into three questioned papers published by Zhang Yuqing. Now it has entered 2022. After 14 months, these three papers of are still on the official website and have not been withdrawn.
Event Review
On November 19, 2020, according to a real-name report material by Lu, a graduate student of the Chemical Engineering major of Tianjin University, "Reported the academic fraud of Zhang Yuqing, a professor at the School of Chemical Engineering of Tianjin University and his daughter Zhang Simeng", Zhang Yuqing, a professor at the School of Chemical Engineering of the school, falsified the experiments and papers published by from 2011 to 2020, and helped his daughter publish papers many times.
This 123-page report evidence written by the graduate student under his disciple, imitating the format of the paper, revealed the academic misconduct of the tutor suspected of tampering/forgery/repeated publication/inappropriate signature/violating conflicts of interest, and the catalog clearly organized the substantive evidence.
Source: 123 page report letter
It is believed that in the past, Lu, he was born in a rural area and graduated from an ordinary first-tier university. After working hard to prepare for the exam for more than a year, he was admitted to a master's degree by Tianda Chemical in 2014. At that time, he was like many chemical engineering students, with a dream of scientific research.
However, after entering Professor Zhang Yuqing's research group, after further understanding the situation in the laboratory, he soon discovered something was wrong:
- Forced students to fake papers and submit more papers to
when writing a journal paper, Zhang Yuqing asked them to directly take the previous master's thesis to use . When recording experimental data, everyone is making adjustments manually.
For example, the laboratory basically did not perform representations from 2011 to 2016, and almost no appointments for representations were made. So how were the experiments completed and how were the papers written? As shown in the figure below:
Source: Student Lu’s 123 page report letter
He also listed Zhang Yuqing’s papers suspected of submitting multiple submissions to one draft, and the routine used in it is also very simple . For example, an article has four chapters: ABCD.
Then use ABC to form the first article, BCD to form the second article, and ACD to form the third article. This way, one article can be written into three articles, which are obviously suspected of self-plagiarism, and one manuscript can be submitted more than one manuscript.
Image source: Student Lu’s 123 page report letter
4 2011-2020, Zhang published four SCIs per year. According to Student Lu, each article SCI costs less than 500 yuan . Zhang's resume is also very eye-catching.
Zhang Yuqing's resume
- Help his female papers for fraud
With the student's in-depth investigation and evidence, he found Evidence of Professor Zhang Yuqing's helping his female Zhang Simeng to commit academic fraud:
At that time, his female was studying for undergraduate degree at Hebei University of Technology (2011-2015 2019, and never came to the laboratory, and no one has seen her, but in many papers where Professor Zhang Yuqing serves as the corresponding author of , Zhang Simeng is either a single work or a three-part work and a higher-level signature position.
Image source: Student Lu’s 123 page report letter
- Project fraud
The student also pointed out that during the mid-term assessment of Tianjin Science and Technology Development Plan (KJXH2014-05) in May 2016, Zhang Yuqing used fake experimental records and experimental data, and used articles that were not related to this project to miss the assessment person .
Image source: Student Lu’s 123 page report letter
Lu Xiang also said that This is the "last straw" that made him decide to drop out of school.
Image source: Student Lu’s 123 page report letter
He said that the reason why no one reported it for a long time is that when Zhang Yuqing graduated, he forced them to sign a statement stating that these experimental data were true, otherwise the students would not be able to graduate smoothly. Mr. Lu dropped out of school in June 2016 and communicated with Professor Zhang Yuqing once on fraud in 2017, but the reply he received was as follows:
Image source: Student Lu’s 123 page report letter
- Why did the reporter report 4 years after he dropped out of school?
According to the statement in the report, he was worried about it. "All my classmates related to Zhang Yuqing have graduated, and I have nothing to worry about, so I decided to report him." Finally, I also hoped that the school could punish Zhang Yuqing to do the following:
Source: Student Lu's 123 page report letter
Once this matter was disclosed, the official notice of the situation was issued in a timely manner by the Da Chemical Institute of Chemical Industry, which clearly stated:
After receiving the real-name report about Professor Zhang Yuqing, the college immediately set up a special investigation team to conduct an investigation in accordance with the regulations. After preliminary verification by the investigation team, Professor Zhang Yuqing's academic misconduct was found to be true. Professor Zhang Yuqing admitted that he had academic misconduct and was willing to bear all responsibility.
Source: Screenshot of the official website of the School of Chemical Engineering, Tianjin University,
The same day, the reporter of Beijing News contacted Zhang Yuqing who was reported. Zhang Yuqing responded that many facts in the reporting materials were distorted , but did not explain further. The next day, Zhang Yuqing replied to a text message from a reporter from the Beijing News that the above report has nothing to do with his daughter , and the school has processed it through relevant channels.
Source: Beijing News
At this point, Even if the counterfeiter admitted to the fraud, it took more than 13 months to withdraw the manuscript .
However, because there are digital researchers with the same name on the pinyin, it is not currently possible to ensure that this is the first article to be withdrawn after Zhang Yuqing, a former professor at Tianjin University, was reported and admitted to academic fraud, but this is also the first article to be withdrawn after Xieheli traced for so long. In addition, it is understood that Professor Zhang's daughter involved in this report will still have papers published normally in 2021 (confirmed).
What consequences will graduate students face?
In 2013, the Ministry of Education, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the " Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Postgraduate Education ", proposing to increase the intensity of graduate student assessment and elimination, and cancel the degree application qualification or revoke the degree application for those who have faked thesis.
Source: Ministry of Education
Therefore, if those students who have graduated and obtained a degree have such serious academic fraud, whether their degree should be recovered or not, whether they are instructed by the tutor, it may also be a question that the school should consider.
Source of this article: Jieluo, scientific research master, Tianjin University School of Chemical Engineering, Retraction
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