The Japanese Psychiatrist Ai Koyanagi She is one of the most cited scientists in the world, in part because she publishes an unusual number of studies. Last year signed 115 works, almost one every three days. Is the co-director of the group of Epidemiology of Mental Disorders and Aging at the Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute, in the Barcelona municipality of Sant Boi de Llobregat, with an elite contract financed by the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA). However, Koyanagi changed her data in 2022 to be listed first as a researcher at Saudi King Abdulaziz University in one of the databases What does the influencer use? ranking of Shanghai, which each year designates the best universities on the planet. The institution that pays his salary, ICREA, has forced Koyanagi to renounce his shady contract with the Arab university, after EL PAÍS revealed that Saudi Arabia pays Spanish scientists to cheat in the ranking from Shanghai.
Koyanagi is included in the Highly Cited Researchers, a list made by the English company Clarivate with the 7,000 scientists from around the world whose studies are most cited by other colleagues. Many academic rankings use this list to award points to institutions. The more Highly Cited Researchers scientists there are at a university, the higher it will appear in the Shanghai ranking, led by Harvard University in the United States. Koyanagi is among 11 researchers in Spain who falsely state that her main place of work is in Arab institutions, in order to artificially boost them in international rankings.
This newspaper contacted on April 14 with Emily Pola, Executive Director of ICREA. Pola responded on April 18 that Koyanagi “requested and obtained authorization from her center”, the Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute, to sign the agreement with the Saudi university, which required the psychiatrist to falsely change her place of work on the list from Highly Cited Researchers in exchange for funding. “Her affiliate center is private and she has full freedom to authorize her researchers to accept those offers,” says Pola. “Upon learning of this situation, we contacted her and her institution, remembering that, even if it is legal, ICREA’s policy does not accept this type of contract. Yesterday [por el lunes, 17 de abril] the researcher resigned from her contract with the King Abdulaziz University”, adds the executive director. ICREA is a foundation financed by the Catalan Government.
The hyperprolific Ai Koyanagi has lately signed studies on muscle atrophy in rats with Alzheimer’s smoking of South Korean adolescents, the highest incidence of Parkinson’s in people taking antiepileptic drugs in Germany and the link between hand strength and the risk of depression. In many of her works, Koyanagi is accompanied by the psychiatrist Josep Maria Haro, co-director of the group at the Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute. Haro is also one of the Highly Cited Researchers and since 2017 he has been in first place as a researcher at the King Saud University in Riyadh. This newspaper has tried to speak to the two since April 10, without success.
chemistry look petrovic, with a contract financed by ICREA at the Catalan Institute for Water Research, in Girona, also received an offer from the Rey Saud University in 2019. A professor from the Arab entity offered to deposit 70,000 euros into his bank account if he falsely changed his place of work in the Highly Cited Researchers database. Petrovic immediately rejected that “indecent” proposal.
King Abdulaziz University, in the Arab city of Jeddah, used an intermediary to transfer its offer to psychiatrist Ai Koyanagi. The mathematician Juan Luis Garcia Guirao, a professor at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, acknowledges that it was he who contacted the Japanese researcher, urging her to change her primary affiliation to opt for a collaborative project with the Arab institution. García Guirao, who was named King Abdulaziz’s “Distinguished Scientist” in 2020, also liaised with other Spanish scientists on the Highly Cited Researchers list, such as the date expert Jose Angel Perez, professor at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche, who in 2020 was listed as a researcher at the Saudi institution. García Guirao maintains that he has never been paid for it and that he has never set foot in the King Abdulaziz University.
Among the 11 researchers in Spain listed as Saudis are the chemist Damia Barcelo and the physical Andres Castellanos, both from the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), under the Ministry of Science. A spokeswoman for Minister Diana Morant’s cabinet points out that the CSIC Ethics Committee is studying the situation. “In the event that there is some type of irregularity, responsibilities will be cleared up,” she affirms. “These rankings they accumulate a history of criticism of their validity due to the type of indicators they use and, therefore, they should not be taken as the only references when classifying the excellence of universities in the world”, adds the spokesperson for the Ministry of Science.
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