The president of the Kyoto Institute of Technology (KIT) in Japan, Masahiro Yoshimoto, is facing several accusations of self-plagiarism. Yoshimoto is alleged to have duplicated data from his own research group across 34 research papers, according to a report in Retraction Watch. The accusations, which were brought to KIT’s attention last October, are based on an analysis by plagiarism detection software iThenticate.
Yoshimoto, who took the helm of KIT in April, has already publicly corrected two of his papers. A university committee apparently concluded earlier this year that his actions didn’t constitute misconduct.
The most recent correction involves a 2005 paper from the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics that announced the development of a new semiconductor alloy. But year later, a second paper claiming to have accomplished the same thing ‘for the first time’ was published in the journal Physica Status Solidi (a), with three overlapping authors from the original article, Retraction Watch notes. It has since been corrected to include references to the original paper.
Yoshimoto’s work straddles electronic engineering, materials science and chemistry, with a particular focus on electronic materials and crystal engineering.