The president of a prestigious university has become embroiled in a plagiarism scandal.

Zhou Zude, president of Wuhan University of Technology and a candidate for Chinese Academy of Sciences academician, China's highest academic honor, is alleged to have copied the work of a fellow scientist in a thesis submitted to a national conference.

The thesis, previously published by Chilean scientist Roberto Cardenas, was co-signed by Zhou and his PhD student Xie Ming, China Youth Daily reported yesterday.

Zhou's and Xie's thesis was first collected in a publication from an academic conference last August. But when the organizing committee searched the paper's title on the Internet, the first result was Cardenas' original version.

The conference then disqualified Zhou's paper, and made a second publication without Zhou's paper. Nothing happened until July, when a letter written to the media accused Zhou of plagiarism.

Xie Ming said he submitted the paper himself and Zhou did not know about the whole paper. However, he could not explain why Zhou had signed as lead author when he supposedly knew nothing about it.

Zhou was not available for comment yesterday.

The original paper, by Cardenas and four other scientists from Chile and Britain, was published in March and is more than 12 pages. Zhou's version was cut to less than five pages.

Cardenas said all photographs and graphics in Zhou's and Xie's thesis are the same as his.

Zhou, 64, is president of Wuhan University of Technology and is also in the candidates' list for this year's CAS academician election.

CAS officials told China Daily yesterday that they haven't been told about the allegations.

Academic plagiarism is not uncommon in China. Just last month, two female teachers from Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine accused their president, Xu Zhiwei, of plagiarism.

In 2007, Fudan University professor Lu Xiaoyong and several other teachers copied content from foreign publications when compiling an English textbook in 2006. The textbooks were recalled.

(China Daily August 5, 2009)