Mira Petrovic, the scientist who refused a "bribe" of 70,000 euros from a Saudi Arabian University: "It is not ethical"

MADRID,  21 (EUROPA PRESS)

Analytical chemist Mira Petrovic, one of the highly cited researchers on Clarivate's list, which serves as a benchmark for the Shanghai Ranking, turned down a €70,000 offer from Saudi Arabia to put her first affiliation at King Saud University during a anus.

"I should not have investigated anything, it was a bribe to do something fraudulent. It is unethical to say that I am from that institution," Petrovic, who has been working in Spain since 1999 and is currently a researcher, assured in an interview with Europa Press. from the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) with affiliation at the Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), where she is Head of Department.

For universities, having affiliates with highly cited researchers who appear in Clarivate is a mark of quality that has an impact on the Shanghai Ranking. "I received an offer from Saudi Arabia for my first affiliation to be at King Saud University and the fact that I appear on the Clarivate list would be attributed to Saudi Arabia," said the scientist.

"The offer was direct, to collect 70,000 euros directly for me and not for research. Afterwards there could be an option to talk about research, but it was something secondary that would come later," Petrovic stressed, recalling that he received the offer by email , which would be annual and could be renewed: "There are researchers who do it year after year".

The report 'The affiliation game between Spanish and Saudi Higher Education and Research institutions' by Siris reveals that there are eleven researchers affiliated with institutions in Saudi Arabia who indicate Spanish institutions as secondary affiliations.

The consultant Siris carried out this investigation after the publication of an article in El País in which it reported that the chemist Rafael Luque had been suspended by the University of Córdoba from his employment and salary for the next thirteen years due to the incorrect scientific affiliation of his research production. The report reflects that, in addition to Luque, there are six other Spanish researchers who entered the Clarivate list with a main affiliation in a Spanish institution, but changed their main affiliation to a Saudi Arabian university.

"This is not legal, at least with the contract I have at ICRA I cannot do any collaboration or put my name in another institution without an express agreement between institutions", Mira Petrovic told Europa Press, while adding that In his case, the Saudi Arabian university "did not want to collaborate with ICRA".

Although he has acknowledged that money "is a temptation" and that the offer would have "solved his life", he has stated that "at no time" did he think of accepting Saudi Arabia's proposal. "It is not ethical, it is fraudulent", he has affected her.

The researcher has warned that, after finding out about this situation, it is possible that now "more people who have received offers and have rejected them" will come out: "They will make it public, until now nobody wanted to say it, they did not want to reveal it."

When asked if this situation could harm the prestige of the Shanghai Ranking, Petrovic pointed out that he does not believe that it will harm its prestige, but he has opted to make "some changes".

Thus, the scientist has criticized that the ranking "looks only at the quantitative point of view". "It doesn't make sense, now you only look at the number of articles that someone publishes, without looking so much at quality. You have to introduce some changes in these rankings and how researchers are valued and go from quantitative indicators to a qualitative evaluation", has proposed.

Lastly, Petrovic stressed that in Saudi Arabia there is "some" research, but "much less than what comes out." "They, with all these cheats they do, seem to have fantastic research and that is not the case. They stand out in some fields, but they are few," he concluded.

The report prepared by the consulting firm Siris, which analyzes Clarivate's list of Highly Cited Researchers, in which around 7,000 researchers appear, explains that, for universities, having highly cited researchers "is important because it is considered a mark of quality and increases your attractiveness. Furthermore, this list is a "key indicator" of the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities.

In this sense, the document highlights that a single highly cited researcher can allow a university to gain up to 200 positions in the Shanghai Ranking. Saudi Arabia, with 112 highly cited researchers, has a proportion between five and ten times higher of these researchers compared to Spain, Germany or France. According to Clarivate, 44 of these researchers are only associated with Saudi institutions through research grants and not main employment.

The report by Siris, which indicates that more than half of the highly cited researchers at King Saud University and King Abdulaziz University have affiliations only through a research grant, warns of the possibility that the real number "is still greater, since in 2021 only nine researchers with this type of affiliation to Saudi universities were listed".

Given these data, CSIC sources informed Europa Press that the institution is studying it, although at the moment it cannot give a definitive answer in this regard, since they have found "inconsistencies" in some data that appear in Clarivate that need to be reviewed with more detail.

On the other hand, the same sources recall that the new Science and Innovation Law regulates double affiliation from September 2022 and the CSIC is analyzing the way in which it will be applied in the institution.

For their part, sources from the Ministry of Science and Innovation affirm that they are going to wait for the assessment of the CSIC Ethics Committee and, in case there is some type of irregularity, responsibilities will be cleared up. In the same way, they ensure that the Government's priority has always been to improve the quality of the scientific and university system as a whole and explain that these rankings accumulate a history of criticism of their validity due to the type of indicators they use and, therefore, , they recall, should not be taken as the only references when classifying the excellence of universities in the world.

The Ministry of Universities is also assessing the scope of the information. Thus, sources from the Department headed by Joan Subirats explain that in his work, through his legislative action, his priority has always been improving the quality of the university and scientific system as a whole, and they show their concern "beyond the fact that may be limited to Universities, research centers or specific researchers".