The ruling on the removal of Kostas P.’s doctoral title, which was central to the case at the Council of State this afternoon, could have major consequences for the approach to malpractice in science. Because is it legally allowed to ‘depromote’ someone?

In 2017, my client proudly obtained his doctorate, but since 2018 the bottom has been pulled out from under him’, says lawyer Bas de Moor at the hearing of the Council of State this Wednesday. That year, former PhD candidate of Wageningen University Kostas P., who De Moor represents, was accused of data manipulation. As a result, P.’s doctorate was taken away and he was dismissed by the university where he now worked. The withdrawal of his title is unjustified, the lawyer said to the three judges on Wednesday. ‘He has gone through a long tunnel, his fate is in your hands. He feels the threat that Wageningen University will always continue to haunt him.’

Did Wageningen University indeed wrongly revoke the doctoral title? That question is now central to the appeal that P. filed with the highest appeal body for these types of issues.

Cheating under the magnifying glass

The case represents a recent shift in the academic world, where fraud and other scientific misconduct are increasingly under scrutiny. For example, scientific journals will retract more articles (that were found to be impure after publication) in 2023 than ever before, Nature recently calculated . The number of complaints handled by the Netherlands Board for Scientific Integrity (LOWI) has also quadrupled in the past ten years compared to the years before that. Well-founded complaints can lead to warnings and even dismissal.

The withdrawal of the doctoral degree is a new addition to the sanctions list. Kostas P. is the first scientist in the Netherlands to whom this happened, in 2019. Last year, the UMC Utrecht also withdrew a doctoral title from an Egyptian doctor whose problematic dissertation the Volkskrant previously wrote about . The universities of Amsterdam, Maastricht and Groningen are also currently reviewing suspicious dissertations.

By taking away the title, universities seem to be taking a leap forward. Previously, this step was never taken, because according to the letter of the law, universities can only award the degree, and not revoke it, Frits Rosendaal explained by telephone prior to the hearing in The Hague. Rosendaal is a professor of clinical epidemiology at Leiden University and also chairman of the local Committee for Scientific Integrity (CWI). ‘Diederik Stapel (the former Tilburg professor who fabricated research results on a large scale, ed .) for example voluntarily returned his title himself in 2011. 
In P.’s case, Wageningen University (as later Utrecht University) found a legal loophole, which was repeated by lawyer Nicole Niessen during the hearing on Wednesday: ‘The dissertation cannot be regarded in retrospect as a test of competence.’ The doctorate was therefore wrongly awarded. You can compare this to an Olympic medal winner who used doping. In retrospect, he should never have participated in the Games.

Tens of thousands of numbers

P.’s 2017 dissertation describes how weather extremes influence poverty-related crime, including in Nigeria at the beginning of the 20th century. For example, more people were in prison during periods of heavy rainfall or drought. This may be related to failed harvests, P. suggests.

That kind of knowledge can also be useful now, to map the possible social consequences of climate change. P. based his analyses on tens of thousands of figures that he manually typed from London archives from the British colonial period.

However, a Nigerian-American team that later analyzed the same source data found no climate effects at all. When a fellow PhD candidate of P. heard this and checked it, he discovered that P.’s data did not always match the archives: they had been adjusted, supplemented or omitted – without explanation. Quotes had also been made up that supported P.’s conclusions. The colleague raised the alarm with his supervisors. A violation of scientific integrity, a Wageningen research committee and the LOWI subsequently concluded after their own investigation.

The university revoked P.’s doctorate five years ago, but he has since appealed several times, both to the university and, ultimately, to the Gelderland court. The court concluded last year that the university acted correctly and was allowed to revoke the doctorate due to the seriousness of the data manipulation. P.’s behavior was ‘very damaging to (…) confidence in science.’

In court today, P., a quiet young man in his thirties who listens attentively and takes notes, makes a final attempt to clear his name. Lawyer De Moor mainly puts forward procedural arguments, such as the lack of clarity about the initial complaints. ‘The train was on the wrong track and kept on going.’ Apart from that, he believes that revoking a doctor’s title is not legally possible.

Furthermore, there would be no question of data manipulation, even though P. initially admitted it. ‘I was pressured by my supervisor’, the Greek researcher himself wants to say about this. P. did justify the choices in his data selection in his thesis, according to his lawyer, but in general terms. ‘My supervisor never said that I had to make detailed footnotes’, says P. about this. ‘In that case, we would not have been here.’ However, P. has never given a clear refutation of the alleged data manipulation, states Niessen on behalf of Wageningen University.

The verdict in the case is expected in six weeks. If the Council of State rules in the university’s favour, important case law will emerge and institutions may be able to revoke doctoral degrees more often. ‘This could be an appropriate sanction’, says Lex Bouter, emeritus professor of scientific integrity, on the phone prior to the hearing. ‘There is also more awareness of integrity issues at universities. Managers realise that they are responsible for a proper research culture. Correcting errors when prevention has failed is part of that.’