Professor from University of Nottingham Earns Authorships by “Reviewing and Editing” Manuscripts, mostly with Tsinghua

YAN Yuying, a professor affiliated to both the University of Nottingham, UK, and the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, earned 11 authorships in 2024, with his contribution of “Writing – review & editing”. An investigation by the 5GH team reveals.

According to the records on Google Scholar, YAN have published 35 papers in 2024 (based on the issue time rather than the publication time), among 11 of which his contribution was stated and only stated as “Writing – review & editing”.

Most (8) of them were co-authored by CAO Bingyang, vice dean in the School of Aerospace Engineering, Tsinghua University, and a winner for the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. The first author of these 8 papers was a same researcher, LUO Ding, with China Three Gorges University and Tsinghua University. It is reasonable to assume that LUO is currently a post-doctor and/or visiting researcher under the supervision of CAO.

The above-mentioned 11 papers as well as other 16 papers have one thing in common: although they were co-authored by multitype authors, YAN is the only one with the University of Nottingham. This indicates that the YAN’s team at University of Nottingham did not involve in the researches, and the YAN’s authorships on these 27 papers are problematic.

Until recently, the 5GH team hears nothing from YAN and related parties.

The 5GH team also finds that YAN’s publications on 3 of his special issues, namely, “3rd International Symposium of Fluids and Thermal Engineering” on Thermal Science and Engineering Progress, “Smart Solutions of Thermal Management and Innovative Technology Applied to Electrical Engineering, Power Electronics and Energy Systems” on e-Prime - Advances in Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Energy, and “Challenges of micro and nano flow and structures for heat transfer enhancement and energy storage” on Case Studies in Thermal Engineering.

YAN published multitype papers on each special issue, which is against the policy from the publisher Elsevier, allowing its guest editor(s) to publish maximum one paper on each of their special issues.

Although the outcomes from our investigation do not suggest these papers were resulted from misconduct, however, the publications from YAN and his co-author LIU Zeyu with Dalian Maritime University are alerting.

Our investigation was initiated by an anonymous e-mail, pointing that 2 of the papers [1-4] co-authored by YAN and LIU et. al., had plagiarized image(s) from other papers, and plagiarism in LIU’s Ph.D. thesis. These misconducts were confirmed by the 5GH team, and both the source and the 5GH reported these issues to the journals and the universities. And we are waiting the reactions.

Update on 2024-08-03 (1) (in Chinese): we have a reply from LUO Ding as following

罗丁：你好，我是最近推文关于诺丁汉大学阎玉英老师文章里面的当事人罗丁，我是清华大学的博后，同时也是三峡大学的兼职硕导，所以我署名有2个单位。。另外，博士期间阎玉英老师是我的导师，毕业后我仍然一直跟阎老师保持合作，文章我会发给阎老师把关提供审阅和意见，所以署名并无不妥

5GH：您好，感谢您的进一步信息

5GH：然后，阎玉英在你文章的署名，只是“提供审阅和意见”？“一直保持合作”是指什么？

罗丁：希望能撤回发文或作出相应处理，阎老师是一位令人尊敬的学者

5GH：我想，你应该先回答我的问题

（不相关内容）

罗丁：“提供审阅和意见”是指我的所有论文都会发给阎老师过目，阎老师会阅读然后给出他的comment，我再根据comments修改，至于语言方面，我的英文表达已经没啥问题，所有不会具体地editing

5GH：这个事情不足以获得署名资格

罗丁：“一直保持合作”是指我和阎老师一直保持学术上的往来，包括idea交流，和指导意见。正如我最新发表的那篇device，采用热管的方案正是阎老师提供的，contribution我有提及。另外，我一直在申请他的玛丽居里学者，若有幸获批将继续前往英国

罗丁：那elsevier里面跟这个贡献有关的就是reviewing and editing，所以一直勾选的这个贡献

5GH：我想，诺丁汉和清华都会对他的职员展开学术伦理的培训，单纯的comments和意见，不足以构成署名资格，这跟出版商的选项，有什么关系？

We hear no further reply from LUO

Update on 2024-08-03 (2) (in Chinese): we have further reply from LUO Ding as following

罗丁：您好，这主要是因为我的idea，特别是一些强化传热，比如热管之类的方法，都是从阎老师那边学过来的，但是对于出版商的贡献标识这块，我确实没怎么重视，就标了最合适的reviewing and editing，对于我从那边学到的这些强化传热方法，没有合适的contribution可选。。对这个署名贡献这块我表示抱歉

罗丁：关于我文章的署名问题，我会出具相应的文件说明情况提供给诺丁汉大学和清华大学，至于阎老师的其他文章，我也不甚清楚，就无法提供了

5GH：我还有个问题，从2023年9月1日，至2024年4月30日，你提交了11篇文章（还没计算不包含阎玉英的），其中2023年9月有3篇，2024年3月28日至4月30日间，有4篇，你们这个领域都是这么高产的吗？而且能如此密集？

罗丁：正如我前面提到的，我在三峡大学任职过，现在一直是那边的硕导，在那边带了13个学生（论文第二作者），学生我都会把方法交给他们，然后给他们创新点去实现，有较大一部分都是理论仿真的工作，用文献的数据来做验证，所以发表了这些论文

罗丁：如果是我单独一个人肯定发表不了这些

5GH：所以，这些工作都是在三峡大学由你的学生做的？那么，曹炳阳为什么署名？

罗丁：曹老师的贡献有：论文指导和交流（课题组组会我都会汇报论文进度，对整个论文里面的工作进行指导）、提供计算平台（仿真需要服务器，计算资源都是我利用清华这边合作导师的）、项目资助来源（文章出图和润色我花的曹老师的经费）

罗丁：可以说是，曹老师指导我的工作，我再根据具体意见，转给我的学生，让他们去相应的做

5GH：你们的仿真是用商业软件做的吗？还是你们自己写完全部的代码？

罗丁：商业软件

5GH：是哪个软件？你们好像没有在论文中披露这个软件的信息？

罗丁：COMSOL

罗丁：有提交的