​The Ethics Commission of Babes-Bolyai University analyzed the doctoral dissertation of Interior Minister Lucian Bode and came to the conclusion that “suspicions of plagiarism are overwhelmingly confirmed” and “identified ethical violations are sufficiently important.” to conclude that the thesis is deeply flawed.”

The ethics committee asks Bode to correct the thesis and withdraw the book published on the basis of the thesis. It also reports to the CNATDCU/National Research Ethics Board “for further action as required by law.”

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“The UBB Ethics Commission adopted on 01.09.2023 Decision No. 1 of 2023 as a result of an independent report after receiving new information regarding suspected plagiarism in the doctoral dissertation of Mr. Lucian Bode. The conclusion of the analysis is that suspicions of plagiarism are mostly confirmed. In the absence of a legal possibility to apply disciplinary action against a person who is not a member of the scientific community, the Commission requests corrections to the thesis and the withdrawal of the book published on the basis of the thesis, and the national boards (CNATDCU/National Research Ethics Board) will be notified of further steps in accordance with the law,” says the message of the UBB Ethics Commission.

The Commission reported on itself after PressOne, under the signature of journalist Emilia Sherkan, published an analysis according to which the doctoral dissertation of Interior Minister Lucian Bode contains at least 18.5% plagiarized text, as well as 6 completely plagiarized illustrations and another 30 incorrectly cited. . Initially, the Ethics Commission did not examine the entire doctoral thesis of the Minister of the Interior, Lucian Bode, but only the fragments that were found to be plagiarized, finding that the fragments identified as containing a problem of plagiarism represented approximately 1,923 words out of 65,000 words. theses (2.95%).

On January 5, the Minister of the Interior, Lucian Bode, sued the Commission on Ethics of the Babes Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca (UBB).

READ HERE THE FULL DECISION OF THE ETHICS COMMISSION OF BABESH BOLYAI UNIVERSITY

The Ethics Commission found:

The commission analyzed the published aspects and came to the conclusion that there are two types of deviations from the citation rules in the analyzed thesis:

• Plagiarism as defined in Law 206/2004 – taking paragraphs of a text (translated from English or directly from Romanian) without citation (through footnotes or in the text) or plagiarizing verbatim (word for word) from the Romanian language, without paraphrasing, entire paragraphs, which involves placing the text in quotation marks, even if the source is cited. Examples are in Appendix 1, which is an integral part of this Decision.
• Error or misquotation in English translations of significant portions of the text. Although the source is indicated in a footnote, the text taken by minimal paraphrasing (as a result of translation) and the doctoral student’s own contribution are not clearly demarcated. There are also texts that the author of the dissertation attributes to primary sources through footnotes, but without indicating that he turned to an indirect source (using the word apud). Finally, there are texts that are cited by reference to the entire article rather than to the exact page from which the text is taken. According to the Code of Ethics of Babes-Bolyai University and international academic practice confirmed by co-opted experts, these deviations are considered serious citation errors,
• Sometimes the concept of “plagiarism” is included under the extended umbrella, which significantly distorts the correctness of the doctoral dissertation. They are consistently repeated throughout the work, which indicates an intention to disguise the lack of an original contribution. Failure to distinguish the quoted text from the original contribution by the body of the text or by noting “author’s translation” results in whole pages consisting of simple compilations of quotations. Claimed tables and figures are either plagiarized or incompletely cited. There are also situations of correct citation, with sufficient paraphrasing, where the accusation of plagiarism is not confirmed. These examples show that the author was aware of proper citation practice.

Taking into account the above conclusions, the Commission reiterates the conclusions from Decision 7/2022 in the sense that:

• Other deviations from research ethics, in addition to those previously complained about and analyzed by the Commission, were also confirmed – plagiarism and false or incorrect citation.
• The revealed ethical deviations are important enough to conclude that this thesis is deeply flawed.
• According to Decision 7/2022, the sanctions provided for in Law 206/2004 cannot be applied to Mr. Lucian Bode, who is not a member of the academic or scientific community. As established by the Ministry of Education, withdrawal of the title of TsNATDTU/by the Ministry is impossible according to Decision No. 10. 364 of the Constitutional Court of June 8, 2022, which made it impossible to apply administrative (or judicial) sanctions in the form of deprivation of a doctoral degree. However, Babes-Boyai University will inform CNATDCU of the findings of this analysis.
• The Commission renews the request addressed to Mr. Bode in Decision 7/2022 to align the thesis with the standards of academic ethics and make it available to the Doctoral School and the Ethics Commission.
• The Commission also requests Mr. Bode and CA Publishing to withdraw the book “Energy Security and Resource Management at the Beginning of the 21st Century: Romania in the Contemporary European Context”, published on the basis of a thesis by CA Publishing in 2021, ISBN 978-606-8330-83-9 , and any re-publication should be carried out only after the correction of all detected deviations.
• If the revocation is not notified to Babesh-Bolyai University within 15 days from the notification of this decision, the Commission will notify the National Council for the Ethics of Scientific Research, Technological Development and Innovation to analyze the aforementioned book. . Note that, unlike ethics commissions, CNECSDTI is not limited to sanctioning members of the academic and research community, being able to decide on sanctions related to a book published on the basis of a thesis.

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