Nature publisher Quirin Schiermeier about Victor Ponta’s plagiarism
Quirin Schiermeier, “Nature” journal’s publisher who brought into attention a possible plagiarism carried out by Victor Ponta, spoke up about the international-scale scandal involving the Romanian Prime Minister (see below snapshot of copied share of Ponta’s PhD work).
Romanian PM Victor Ponta plagiarized copyrighted material for his PhD thesis, Nature says. Photo: google images
Quirin Schiermeier, a German correspondent for “Nature”, who wrote science articles focused on Germany, European Union, Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union, told in an interview for Realitatea that early last week, the famous magazine came into the possession of documents incriminating Victor Ponta. However the author did not reveal information about the anonymous source behind the allegations. “We made sure that they [documents] are genuine,” said Schiermeier. Incriminatory documents show that Ponta’s 432-page, Romanian-language thesis on the functioning of the International Criminal Court consists of duplicated text from various works published by Dumitru Diaconu, Vasile Creţu and Ion Diaconu.
Read also: Ponta removes Catania master from CV after plagiarism embarrassment
Concerning the political side of the possible plagiarism scandal involving Ponta, Schiermeier says that Nature is very little or not interested at all in political disputes that take place in Romania. “The main stake is the quality of the scientific research and compliance of academic standards in Romania,” added the editor.
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This snapshot appears to show the plagiarized/copied share of Ponta's PhD thesis
Adrian Nastase not accused!
According to Schiermeier, Victor Ponta’s doctoral thesis coordinator, Adrian Nastase, is not to be blamed even if it will emerge that the work at the center of the scandal is indeed a clear proof of plagiarism: “The task of a PhD supervisor is just to ensure that certain quality standards are met. However the author is the one who needs to pay atention not to acquire someone else work without citing properly the sources.”
Who decides whether plagiarism or not?
“Despite being reported in the international media, the Romanian academic community is the authority to decide wether Victor Ponta is guilty of plagiarism or not,” added Schiermeier. “The committee to analyze this situation must truly be independent”, the Nature editor pointed out.
The interim Minister of Education, Liviu Pop changed on June 8, the composition of the National Ethics Council of Scientific Research, Technological Development and Innovation, shortly after an identical plagiarism scandal broke out in the media and led to the resignation of (then) Minister Ioan Mang. According to Romanian newspaper EVZ.ro, people close to PSD were appointed as members of the commission, following an order issued by PM Victor Ponta.
Of, Offf, Offffffff….
Any cheap trick thrown on the media market by “Dottore di deviazione e intossicazione ~ ScârBăsescu”, is immediately turned on all sides and all the Romanian press fall fast into the sailor trap full of diversions, and the worse thing is that even a foreign publication like Nature bite this cheap bait… 🙁
@Simon. Do you think Nature really cares about the war between Base and Ponta? They probably checked PM’s thesis and saw identical text without proper reference. The fact that the president might be behind whole situation,,,that’s something else, but Nature did not bite any bait, I believe:)
Here is the proof proof of Plagiarism in Ponta’s case:
http://media.tvrinfo.ro/other/201206/oglinda-vp-2003-teza_94614100.pdf
The .pdf document made public by the public television TVR Info, shows clear examples of plagiarism.
It is not important who signaled the case to the media. The question is: did the Prime minister plagiarised or not? It seema yes.
And Nature did verified both the authenticity of the authors and the plagiarism accuse. Read in the text. Nature indicated 2 university professors, who compared the thesis and the bibliography and confirmed the plagiarism. I am wondering how much money did these defenders of Ponta receive, or what interests do they have in this compromised government.
Here is the proof proof of Plagiarism in Ponta’s case:
http://media.tvrinfo.ro/other/201206/oglinda-vp-2003-teza_94614100.pdf
The .pdf document made public by the public television TVR Info, shows clear examples of plagiarism.
It is not important who signaled the case to the media. The question is: did the Prime minister plagiarised or not? It seema yes.
And Nature did verified both the authenticity of the authors and the plagiarism accuse. Read in the text. Nature indicated 2 university professors, who compared the thesis and the bibliography and confirmed the plagiarism. I am wondering how much money did these defenders of Ponta receive, or what interests do they have in this compromised government.
I really don’t understand why the big fuss about our PM. In Romania you can get entirely your thesis (faculty, master, phD…doesn’t really matter) online with just 100 RON (about 25euro) : http://www.lucraridediploma.net/. Just translate the text with google. They even send you a fiscal bill for the stolen work. All our “universities” practice theft, it’s just berried under the rug to keep them financed. So please westerners be very very careful when you’re hiring romanians. You’ll eventually have to pay to train them because our school and the peole who get out of it is really SHIT!
Romanians, cool down. The whole world is corrupt. It is the same thing anywhere. Look at Nature: big scientific journal started to do politics suddenly. How much did you get paid guys?
Nature did not do any politics, but just analyzed /reviewed /criticized a PhD thesis:)
But some professor-bandit at Northwestern University (USA) with a united italian research gang from the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Joint Research Centre, universities of Ferrara and Genova is still “plagiarizing researching”: http://issuu.com/r_sklyar/docs/sklyarvsmussaivaldi
It is still quite difficult to settle who’s the original author. In your case there is needed a chronological analysis of the events/publications. Furthermore editors and reviewers as well are not aware of the “existence” of some identical publications.
Nature are just some scumbags paid by romanian president basescu too destroy the prime minister. it’s a shame
You are not credible at all. At least the Romanian President came up with some evidence (look up for Ponta’s thesis). Apparently the romanians are confronted with serious obsession; if a meteorite hits Earth probably they would still blame Basescu for that.
If a meteorite hits earth it will hit both your heads – the guy suggesting that Nature is payed by Bashescu and the other one who claims that Bashescu is innocent in this story. The whistleblower comes from Presidency and this scandal about a 2003 thesis was triggered in 2012 by Bashescu as a political struggle. Bye bye Bashescu – impeachment, nene!
You’re missing the point: it’s more about facts and not who’s behind the allegations. The plagiarism charges still stand. You would rather blame more the thief than the guy who exposed him. Otherwise you’re biased.
Do you think so? There is an ocean of plagiarists in Romania, and Ponta is just a drop. It is, however, THE drop that Bashescu needed in his political struggle. Just because he didn’t find any other breaches of – for instance – corruption in Ponta’s background. The double standard is even more obvious since other political figures, this time close to President Bashescu (Laura Codruta Kovesi, General Prosecutor, Andreea Paul Vass, Vicepresident of Bashescu’s party, Elena Udrea, ex-tourism minister and Bashescu’s favorite blonde) also plagiarized their psuedoscientific works, but were not submitted to control from special presidential comissions. Should they need a Quirin Schiermeyer article in order to be judged in the same way?
By the way, I told you that you are completely wrong when alledging that Bashescu is an innocent bystander and has no interest in this scandal. Maybe you didn’t understand very well from the start.
Indeed I did not really understand from beginning, but who’s able to figure out 100% the Romanians’ twisted and dirty political games? Regarding the fact the 2/3 of romanian parliament members have a PhD degree, the conclusions are clear to everyone. Of course Basescu used the plagiarism against Ponta as they both had sparked conflictual statements against each other. Regarding the ocean of plagiarism you mentioned, in an ideal world all those suspected/accused should resign but in that case Romania will certainly lack politicians,,,and cleary that would be better for the country. Anyway thinks are somehow heading toward a dictatorial background now as it has not been a surprise for long that Antonescu is eager to claim the presidential chair.
I am glad we agree. Do you really believe that Romania was characterized by absolute democracy during the last years, and that Bashescu didn’t concentrate too much personal power by directly influencing most of the institutions? I am sick and tired not only of plagiarism, but also of blackmailing methods, of ex-communists condamning communism, of nepotism such as illiterate Elena Bashescu becoming a Romanian europarliamentarian, and so on. I would prefer a democracy with powerful institutions than a providential “father of the nation”. And – yes – Ponta was wrong that he didn’t immediately give up to his doctoral title 5 seconds after the article in Nature News. I am also sick and tired of politicians who love to have academic titles as well. He will very probably remain “Mr. Ponta – paste. Copy Paste”
Dear Mr. Branisteanu,,,just wanted to express all respect for your way of thinking. If 50% of people were like you, the situation there would have probably been different.
And answering to your question I would like to state the followings (just personal opinion). In the past 20 years Romania had some limited democracy which was slightly better than before 90s.
People blame Basescu that he used his influence over the state institutions. Indeed, that is true to some extent, BUT as I see USL proceeds exactly the same. What is the difference??? USL replaced overnight panels of ICR, CNATDC, Senate, Deputy Chamber, Romanian Constitutional Court (to follow), so they instated their own people. Probably not even Basescu would have managed that in such a short period of time. I expect that also the convicted Adrian Nastase will soon be set free on reason that there is no evidence, contradictory to general beliefs of all people (either USL or PDL) who charged him as corrupt. Senator Catalin Voicu is gonna have the same lucky fate.
In conclusion the pawns are being replaced but the awful game is the same. Nothing will change because Romania does not have real public opinion. As I mentioned previously the most worrying situation is that after November elections, there will be no true oposition in the Romanian parliament, thus the perfect playground for malicious games.
Besides that many PDL politicians migrated to USL, so practically the PMs are not affected at all but people will be disappointed again (I am pretty confident of that, hope I will be wrong).
I belive that people should forget about Basescu (who is anyway at the end of his mandate) and PDL (which is alsmost history), and pay careful attention on the new leadership. To me, they look too greedy for power instead of concentrating more on the social and economical aspects of the country.
Despite being blamed, I think that Basescu wanted to grant justice some freedom, to be more independent. Of course, many folks might say that he was controlling the justice and why Anastase, Berceanu, Videanu, etc were not accused. That’s true, but when most of the leaders in Bucharest are suspected of graft, obviously it is not an easy and fast job. Everything was slowed down but I still have the belief that it was on a good track. Regarding the fact that only Nastase’s sentence set the political scene in turmoil, imagine what would have happened if more guys had been brought in front of the judges. Obviously everyone would have claimed political reasons (suppose you are already sick of that:) and that it was Basescu’s hand. Therefore people should decide what exactly they want, but many of them are too “poor” to understand.
Your points of view are OK, but how I see the situation now is that we both give much attention to this mutant Bashescu – you thinking that Romanian paranoia always blames Bashescu, me thinking that Bashescu is to be essentially blamed. I wouldn’t get into details or polemics, but my point of view is that Bashescu is an extremely talented manipulative character, who succeeded to artificially burst conflicts finally leading to an artificial gap among Romanians with a sincere rightist or – at least – anticommunist orientation. I honestly think that the first condition toward a comeback toward the country’s democratization is the dissapearance of this political mule. It is primarily his fault that many of ex-communist leaders (including himself) are still in power now. Institutions such as secret services, the general prosecutor, the constitutional court, instruments of legal control (DNA, ANI, ANAF) were and largely still are under his absolute control.I want him gone, and then we’ll see how is to fight communism, miners, plagiarism, Iliescu, etc. WITHOUT Bashescu.