A 45-year-old former professor who has been embroiled in a plagiarism scandal for the past three years has been stripped of a top national award by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Li Liansheng was a professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University.

In 2005, Li Liansheng, who was a professor at the prestigious Xi'an Jiaotong University in Northwest China's Shaanxi province, won the ministry's second-prize for scientific and technological progress for his apparent research into scroll compressors.

But the ministry said an investigation has confirmed that Li's material had been copied from others and data on the economic benefits of his work was faked.

The ministry said it will take back the 100,000-yuan prize money (US$15,200) and order the return of his certificate.

Li is a Cheung Kong Scholar. That award, funded by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing and the Ministry of Education, honors outstanding professors at Chinese universities.

News that the ministry is stripping him of his award for scientific and technological progress comes three years after six colleagues first claimed that the energy and power studies expert had plagiarized the work of others.

Li Liansheng was a professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University.

Wan Gang, the minister of science and technology, had earlier vowed that there would be a "zero tolerance" policy toward research frauds and academic plagiarism amid growing criticism about the country's academic integrity.

"We will dig up the past of those researchers who fake their works and punish them," he told China Daily in November 2010.

The country has more than 2.3 million workers in the science and technology field and the number of research papers published on the subject has topped the world.