Expert was a cheat, say accusers
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Shanghai Daily, September 15, 2011
Six agricultural experts, including four professors at China Agricultural University, have accused Shi Yuanchun, the university's former president, of cheating in his research to gain his position and academic awards.
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Shi Yuanchun.[File photo] |
Shi, 80, is also an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
In an open letter, the experts said Shi claimed predecessors' research as his own when he was president of the Beijing university from 1987 to 1995. The letter also claimed that, after leaving the university, he cheated the Shenzhen government out of investment in his agricultural company.
It also alleged that Shi had claimed it was his research findings that led to the disappearance of rock formations on the North China Plain, thus increasing the area of arable land when, in fact, the formations, know as saline aquifiers, had gone naturally.
"As people who are familiar with him and what he did, we feel it's our responsibility to disclose his academic corruption," the letter read. "We cannot tolerant the biggest academic fraud in the country to go on cheating the public."
Li Jilun, one of the signatories, told China National Radio that he had worked with Shi for more than 60 years, so he was very clear that Shi's research results were not genuine but plagiarized from other professors.
Li, 86, a professor with the university and an academician with the CAS, said Shi took advantage of his position to seize other people's research results.
"As early as in 1995, I decided to unmask him," said Li. "I prepared much written material at that time, but the investigation didn't reach a result, and he didn't receive any punishment."
Then other scholars from the Shanghai and Nanjing branches of the CAS also reported Shi's academic malpractices to the academy, the state radio said.
Li said Shi "had too high a position thus no one dared to look into his case."
He said he had seen Shi on television posing as a biological energy expert and that had provoked him to report him again. Li said: "I have to remind people not to be taken in by him."
Shi has not commented on the claims made in the letter.
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