Far from resolving the controversy surrounding the current rector of the University of Salamanca, Juan Manuel Corchado, for the alleged use of self-citations of his work to inflate his resume researcher, a new report recently published fuels the controversy.
This is an analysis prepared by Alberto Martín and Emilio Delgado, experts in bibliometrics at the University of Granada, who accuse the also professor of computer science and artificial intelligence of “manipulation” and create an “editorial network aimed at producing publications and citations in order to shine in their bibliographic and bibliometric profiles” and “to shine in the rankings of researchers and universities” based on these indicators.
The new study was commissioned on May 29 by the Spanish Research Ethics Committee – which in turn was commissioned by the ministry to investigate the matter on May 3 – in order to investigate the accusations that appeared in several media outlets about Corchado.
It was in June that the experts from the University of Granada transmitted their conclusions to the National Committee, which decided to keep the content and the names of its authors “anonymous”. From there, on the 12th of this month, the state body transmitted its own recommendations, in which it asked the University of Salamanca to conduct an objective investigation in this regard.
The USAL then appointed a neutral commission within its Board of Directors, headed by the professor of the University of León, Salvador Rus, to be able to carry out the task of the Ethics Committee. At that time, the anonymity of the content of the Granada report and its authors was lifted in order to be able to transmit it to the commission.
However, the body coordinated by Rus, which did not find any irregularities, “did not contact” the researchers of the Andalusian university, they emphasize. Experts who emphasize in their report that Corchado created “a factory of publications and citations built with the help of his closest collaborators” that made his “production and scientific impact” have been “overestimated” and “not faithful to reality.”
