The dispute between senior fracking academics at the University of Glasgow has intensified after Professor David Smythe accused former colleagues of ‘research misconduct’ and ‘plagiarism’.
Last year, Spinwatch revealed that the university had abruptly terminated Smythe’s online access to scientific journals and his email account without warning just three days after he published an anti-fracking article in Solid Earth, a respectable European journal.
Ex-colleagues of Smythe, who he has accused of being pro-fracking, alerted executives in Cuadrilla to his critical article so it could be rebutted on publication, emails obtained by Spinwatch under the Freedom of Information Act also showed.
At the time, Smythe, who lives in the south of France, said the university was trying to silence him. He claimed his online access was ended because Paul Younger, a senior engineering professor at the university ’disagrees with my views on fracking; he and many other UK earth science academics depend upon industry and government for research grants'.
Younger has criticised Smythe for ‘pseudo-science scaremongering’. However, internal emails released to Smythe showed his access was ended in part because the university did not want to upset its ‘industrial partners.’
Smith has crowd-funded more than £14,000 to challenge the university’s right to terminate his online research access. As that legal action looms, the academic row has escalated.
Now newly released emails obtained by Spinwatch reveal that on 13 June last year Smythe accused Younger and his colleague Rob Westaway of ‘plagiarism’ in a 2014 paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology.
Smythe outlined how the ‘central idea’ of this paper was a proposed ‘ground motion criterion for regulating induced microseismicity from fracking, as is used in regulating other industrial activity such as quarry blasts. This is one area of their research with which I have some sympathy; however, their idea is not new.’
According to the disclosed emails, the honorary senior Research Fellow went on to allege that the idea was first proposed by two scientists working for Geoscience Limited two years earlier in 2012, which had been submitted in a paper to DECC.
Tony Bachelor, one of the authors of the paper has over 40 years professional experience in the field of geothermal engineering.
Smythe took his concerns to Glasgow University’s research integrity adviser and suggested that Westaway and Younger should publish an apology and correction on the journal’s website.
The emails suggest that Glasgow University reacted to Smythe’s complaint in a way that may have breached its own research code and guidelines for investigating allegations of misconduct in research.
The day after receiving his complaint, John Marsh, the university’s research integrity adviser for the School of Engineering, emailed Younger about the complaint from ‘a certain David Smythe, with whom I believe you have some history’.
The university’s code states that: ‘All possible steps will be taken to protect the confidentiality of the person(s) making the allegation of research misconduct (the Complainant(s)) and of the researcher(s) against whom an allegation of research misconduct has been made (the Respondent(s)).’
Younger replied: ‘Groan ... We shouldn't let Smythe open up a new front in his endless attempts to pretend he knows Hydrogeology when he demonstrably doesn't’.
Five months after the complaint was made, Professor Miles Padgett of Glasgow University’s Integrity Council told Smythe there was ‘no convincing evidence that the ideas contained [sic] the source report are fundamental to the central tenet of the article’ by Younger and Westaway. He added that the Geoscience article was not online for any significant period of time and therefore would be hard to find and copy.
The university concluded: ‘There is no reason … that omitting the content of the online report was the result of poor scholarship, nor that it is necessary to cite or acknowledge in the article either the report or the ideas contained within it.’
When asked to comment, Padgett added: ‘The University of Glasgow takes allegations of research misconduct seriously and follows a defined policy when such allegations are made. For complaints that are considered, but not upheld, the process correctly grants full confidentiality to those involved. In this instance the respondents have allowed me to confirm to you that a complaint was received by the university and was considered in accordance with our procedures. After due consideration, the complaint was fully dismissed.’
Smythe has now written to Professor Eddie Bromhead, chief scientific editor of the Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, published by the Geological Society of London.
In his email, Smythe argued that the paper published was ‘prima facie evidence of their poor scholarship’ which ‘failed to cite this earlier work’.
A spokesperson for the journal said: ‘Any complaints concerning breaches of the Society’s code of publishing ethics are taken seriously and are dealt with confidentially. We never comment publicly on such matters.’
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