Investigative journalist says Romania’s interior minister plagiarized at least 18.5% of his Ph.D. thesis

Emilia Sercan, PressOne’s investigative journalist, revealed evidence that Romania’s interior minister Lucian Bode plagiarized at least 18.5% of his 2018 thesis, in no less than 65 out of 194 pages and 10,139 words.

Babes-Bolyai University, the Cluj-based institution that awarded the academic title four years ago, previously reported that only 2.95% of the minister's “Energy security and resource management at the beginning of the 21st century” thesis was found to have plagiarism problems. The ethics commission later decided that no sanction would be made and justified Bode’s “citation errors.”

The academic imposture was disguised through translation from English to Romanian, partial or full paraphrasing, and pawn sacrifice, a practice where a source is only cited narrowly.

“He translated word for word from English entire pages of authors he did not cite either in the footnotes or in the bibliography; in a few cases he even plagiarized the footnotes included in some of the unattributed and plagiarized articles through translation,” the Emilia Sercan explained.

The PressOne report shows that at least 30 out of 58 illustrations are incorrectly cited. Six of them, which occupy 2.7 pages, do not even include any reference to the source.

UBB is yet to respond to the new findings but has previously stated that it’s ready to reinstate its position should new evidence appears.

In the past few years, a series of high-ranking officials have been hit by plagiarism accusations, including Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă and former minister of education Sorin Cîmpeanu. The latter was replaced by Ligia Deca after resigning back in September after Emilia Sercan reported her plagiarism findings on Cîmpeanu’s 2006 thesis.

(Photo source: Inquam Photos/George Calin)