The cloister of the University of Salamanca this Thursday was awaited with some expectation. The rector of the University of Salamanaca, Juan Manuel Corchado, was going to give explanations after the external report requested by the Research Ethics Committee concluded that Corchado had “an editorial network” and “a publication factory”, the publishing house Springer withdrew 75 articles in which Corchado had participated and the Governing Board of the Conference of Rectors (CRUE) sent a statement in which it rejected “any unethical conduct,” although it did not allude to expressly to Juan Manuel Corchado.
However, the faculty has not followed the planned agenda and the vote has been brought forward. Nor has the session been broadcast live – as on other occasions –, not even the rector’s report despite the fact that it was planned to be this way, something that the rector has justified by the Data Protection Law.
Corchado has assured that it does allow for a streaming within the university space. Right at the end of the faculty, the general secretary of the USAL, Alfredo Ávila de la Torre, has asked for “some caution” when talking about a lack of transparency because they consider that the faculty should be open, but only at the university level and not to the tourists or through YouTube.
“Any tourist who visits this historic building cannot enter the cloister because they are not from the university community. We cannot make a leap in transparency and the tourist cannot enter the room and they can see it on YouTube. We have to establish a transparency control regime that is appropriate to what is needed,” said the general secretary of the USAL, who has encouraged work on a new public system that has “all the guarantees.”
It is not retransmitted to avoid “illegality”
“We do not have the technology to broadcast this as the Law tells us. Yesterday we received several questions in this regard, we asked Legal Services and the board has decided that, in order not to incur in illegality,” said Corchado, who has refused to assess whether, when the cloister has been broadcast on previous occasions, He had broken some law. The spokesman for the Government of Castilla y León, Carlos Fernández Carriedo, has highlighted that the USAL is “very important” and has referred to “university autonomy”.
Some of the professors critical of Corchado’s work have also wanted to know exactly the rector’s organizational chart; not only its vice-rectors, but also the rector’s delegates, managers, commissioners and service directors.
The rector of the USAL has assured that the supplements received are “a pittance” for the responsibility they entail and has ruled out that they influence the Budget, whose personnel expenses chapter will exceed the budget limit by three million euros, according to calculated Corchado.
The head of the University of Salamanca has opted to have teams that can respond to daily work and also plan the future of the university. However, it has not provided data on how many staff it is requiring or the remuneration it charges, although this will be done “when there is a possibility” because it wants to publish it in an “orderly” manner and not “putting patches.” Corchado took office at the end of May.
“We have asked for a list, searched in law eb or in news that we are finding out about the appointments, but we want something complete with names, reductions in hours and remuneration,” claimed Susana Pérez.
‘Nature’, the CRUE and other societies have gone “with a story”
The rector of the USAL has criticized that the CRUE did not consult him or “many” rectors “friends” of his before that statement, just as the publisher of the journal Nature and other scientific societies, which he He has left “with a story” and that, he points out, they have issued opinions “without knowing the subject.”
On occasion, Corchado’s story has been contradictory: first he said that the editors had not “contacted” him and then clarified shortly afterwards: “In Nature They write to me on a Friday afternoon, I spend the weekend explaining and they don’t even read it,” criticized the rector of the University of Salamanca, who ‘understands’ the “pressures” that Springer may have received.
The rector of USAL has stressed that he is “calm” because he has dedicated his life “to public service” despite the “media campaign” with “spurious purposes” and threats—even death—that he has suffered. This is how Juan Manuel Corchado has expressed himself before the highest representative body of the University Community, which has experienced a moment of tension after some members critical of him have intervened.
“Sick of putting up with nonsense”
“Whoever wants to take this out of context, let them do so. “I’m tired of putting up with this and listening to nonsense,” protested Corchado, who insisted on reducing the importance of the latest events. Regarding the deletion of pieces uploaded to the USAL institutional repository (GREDOS), Corchado has assured that he is “the biggest defender” of this repository and that, especially in the pandemic, he asked his team to upload “everything that could” (books, articles, presentations, etc.) to the repository because “it had almost no impact.”
Given his possible presentation to the position of rector, Corchado—according to his story—gave instructions to remove the 200 items. “Without further ado, I picked up the phone and told them: ‘remove them because they are no longer useful.’ And there is nothing more to say,” he concluded.
When asked about Corchado’s affiliations with the universities of Osaka or Malaysia, the rector asked about the authority of Susana Pérez—a professor in the Department of Applied Physics who considered running against Corchado in the elections—because she has “few articles” in your career and sign the articles “always in the middle”. “It is very easy to criticize and focus on those things that others criticize in newspapers,” reproached Corchado, who has assured that from now on he will not speak to any journalist about his self-citation scandal.
“Whoever wants something, see you in court. And whoever doesn’t want it, maybe we’ll see each other in court,” said Corchado, who assured that after ordering the deletion of his articles in the GREDOS system he received calls from “four or five journalists.” “And one of them, who is still there talking about me, insisted. He told me: ‘Tell me what you want and I’ll say what I want.’
Corchado’s intervention concluded with applause from the faculty after the rector stated that he has his head “very high” for his “prestige” and criticized those who try to “take from where there is none.” Some of the critical representatives of the faculty have asked Corchado for “due respect” after the rector has addressed some of the faculty members and has alluded to their number of publications. A minor applause began the end of the lecture that took place in the Auditorium of the University of Salamanca.
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