The largest public body for funding science in Spain, the State Research Agency, has “precautionarily suspended” its collaboration with computer engineer Juan Manuel Corchado, rector of the University of Salamanca, as confirmed by the agency’s director. the physical Domènec Espriu, to EL PAÍS. Until now Corchado had had a role as an evaluator, with influence in the distribution of public money of the institution, which has an annual budget of 1,420 million euros annual.
The agency, belonging to the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, communicated its decision to the rector on June 14, just two days after the Spanish Research Ethics Committee urged the University of Salamanca to exercise “its inspection powers.” and sanction” in response to “the alleged bad practices” of Corchado. The engineer, professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, has boasted in recent years of being the fourth most cited scientist in Spain in his field, and one of the 250 most mentioned in the world, thanks to a resume swollen with thousands of self-citations and dozens of fake profiles dedicated to quoting him. Corchado, born in Salamanca 53 years ago, also gave written orders to his workers to summon him 20 times or more in each study, according to internal messages published by this newspaper.
The rector, who since April 23 has refused to be interviewed by EL PAÍS on numerous occasions, said last Sunday in The Salamanca Gazette which has been made available to the Ministry and the Spanish Research Ethics Committee to clarify any doubts. He committee report On June 12, he urged the Salamanca university to supervise its own rector. “Since the competence of this committee is to ensure scientific integrity and ethics and given the alleged seriousness of the facts, this committee considers an exhaustive and independent verification of them by the competent authorities to be essential and unavoidable,” the committee said. , chaired by Jordi Camidirector of the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park.
The report does not expressly mention the rector, but it does cite an article about Corchado of Retraction Watch, the American organization specialized in scientific fraud that already uncovered the professor’s traps in March 2022. Although it is obvious that the committee’s opinion refers to his practices, Corchado sows doubt. “I am completely calm and we have received a report that is what they have made public.” […]. The University will analyze it with absolute transparency, but I will tell you that my name does not appear in the report,” the rector declared on Sunday in The Salamanca Gazette. In the same interviewinsisted that he wants to build a new campus on the old Mercasalamanca land, with the help of the Salamanca City Council, whose mayor is Carlos García Carbayo, of the Popular Party.
A dozen professors from the University of Salamanca consulted by this newspaper distrust the institution’s ability to transparently investigate its own rector. The president of Research Ethics Committee from the University of Salamanca is Bertha Gutierrez, who has publicly supported Corchado and is one of his vice-rectors. The engineer presented himself as the only candidate for the rector elections on May 7, when his bad practices had already been published, and he received 474 votes in favor among permanent professors (tenured and full professors), with 401 blank and another 48 null.
At his inauguration ceremony on May 31, Corchado received a one minute ovation in the auditorium of the University of Salamanca. “There will be nothing, absolutely nothing, that will stop us. I am sure that, in addition to winning, with our works we will also be able to convince,” proclaimed the new rector, paraphrasing his predecessor Miguel de Unamuno, who on October 12, 1936, in the middle of the Civil War, uttered his legendary phrase “Winning is not It is convincing.” Both the mayor of Salamanca and the president of the Junta de Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (PP), supported Corchado at the ceremony. “If we continue working together, no one is going to stop us: all of us together,” said Mañueco.
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