Dr. Nguyen Canh Luong, Vice Rector of the Hanoi University of Technology, has been accused of plagiarism of his dissertation.

Dr. Nguyen Canh Luong

A denunciation was sent by the university to the Ministry of Education and Training by Nguyen Ngoc Thanh, Lecturer of the Welding Department.

According to Mr. Thanh’s petition, Luong defended his PhD thesis in 1996 and that nearly 100 percent of the content of his thesis had been copied from another dissertation, prepared by Dr. Dang Van Khai 10 years before.

After reading the two dissertations, a mathematician said in his thesis, Luong made just some changes in Dr. Dang Van Khai's paper, but the majority remained the same.

Khai was among two of Luong's instructors. At the beginning of the thesis, Luong stated, “I assure that this is my own research and any statistics within the thesis are correct and original.”

When Luong defended his thesis the jury recommended that he clarify his sources. Luong’s thesis was ranked as excellent by the jury in 1996.

Dinh Van Hai, a spokesman for Hanoi University of Technology, said the university has cooperated with the Ministry of Education and Training for the inspection in this case.

In 1996, universities were not responsible for assessing postgraduate research. The Ministry of Education and Training is responsible for dealing with the case. The universities responsibility only goes so far as their full cooperation with the ministry.