Education minister Sorin Cîmpeanu, the second minister in the Ciucă government to leave for reasons of academic integrity / In addition to the two, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă and Transport Minister Sorin Grindeanu are also accused of plagiarism, while Minister for the Interior Lucian Bode has classified his thesis.
Education Minister Sorin Cîmpeanu resigned Thursday after journalist Emilia Șercan accused him of plagiarising a scientific work. Cîmpeanu had been accused of including provisions in the draft laws on education that whitewashed all plagiarists. He is the second minister in the Ciucă government to leave office after accusations of academic integrity.
On 15th of December 2020, Florin Roman resigned as Minister of Research after listing a non-existent degree on his CV.
Libertatea then published an investigation showing that Roman had listed on his CV that he had a degree in economics from Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj. UBB revealed that Roman is not a graduate of the university, but received a diploma from a college.
It was the first case of resignation in the Ciucă government on grounds of academic integrity.
In August 2021, G4Media wrote that the Minister of Internal Affairs, Lucian Bode, sealed his doctoral thesis the day before the announced deadline for full publication on a platform managed by the Ministry of Education.
He did this by sending an address to the university where he defended his thesis. He later justified his decision by saying that he had published his work at a publishing house, which is untrue.
Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă is also accused of plagiarism.
In January, an investigation published by pressone.ro showed that Nicolae Ciucă’s thesis, on the basis of which he became a doctor of military science in 2003, included plagiarised content on at least 42 pages out of a total of 138.
The content of at least 19 pages was plagiarised from two other doctoral thesis previously defended at the National University of Defence „Carol I” (UNAP), one of them coordinated by the Prime Minister’s own supervisor.
With a few exceptions, the plagiarised portions detected were copied from printed sources, which could not be detected with anti-plagiarism software.
The Prime Minister defended himself at the time by claiming that the work was done „according to the legal requirements in place at the time”.
Transport minister Sorin Grindeanu is also suspected of intellectual theft after he consistently refused to make public a book he co-authored with his father.
In December 2021 he was even summoned in an open letter by 40 Romanian mathematicians to send 7 copies of the book to the National Library for consultation.
„As long as the book „Lebesgue-Radon integral in relation to a complex measure” by Nicolae Grindeanu and Sorin Grindeanu, Ionescu Publishing House (2002) cannot be consulted in a public library, these reasons for doubt about its existence produce a much greater harm than the good brought by a man’s contribution to the act of government,” reads the letter sent by the 40 mathematicians, including well-known names such as Radu Gologan or Sergiu Moroianu, husband of the mayor of Sector 1, Clotilde Armand.
In reply, the transport minister said he had done his schooling „on time and in full”. „Please go to the Ministry of Education and ask for my school and student transcripts and see, I won’t tell you in advance, but see what grades I got as a student,” the Transport Minister said at the time.
Charges of plagiarism have also been leveled at several members of governments in recent years:
Victor Ponta, former Prime Minister, plagiarized his PhD. It was withdrawn by the CNATDCU in 2016. Ponta lost his case challenging the withdrawal of his PhD at the ICCJ in 2020.
Gabriel Oprea, Romania’s former deputy prime minister and defence minister, was stripped of his PhD in 2016 for plagiarism.
Mihai Tudose, a former prime minister who received his doctorate from the SRI Academy under Gabriel Oprea, has asked the court to withdraw his doctorate.
Radu Stroe, former Minister of Interior, was stripped by the Court of his plagiarized doctorate obtained under the tutelage of Gabriel Oprea.
Ioan Mang, former Minister of Education, was accused of plagiarising 3 scientific articles.
Mihai Stănișoară, former Minister of Defence, was accused of plagiarising his PhD thesis at the SRI Academy.
Petre Tobă, former Minister of the Interior, was accused of plagiarising 250 of the 390 pages of his doctoral thesis.
Liviu Pop, the former education minister who disbanded the CNATDCU in 2012 to protect Ponta, did not receive his PhD in 2018 due to suspicions of plagiarism.
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