Thirty-three lecturers at eight of Thailand’s universities have been found to have submitted research papers bought from some overseas institutes, claiming that they are their own work, Professor Dr. Sirirurg Songsivilai, permanent secretary of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovations, told the media today (Friday).

He said that 34 universities have conducted separate investigations into research papers submitted by more than 100 lecturers, which are suspected of being plagiarised from work commercially produced by some foreign institutes specialised research works for sale.

He said that his office has already received the findings from a number of these universities, eight of which report suspected plagiarism by 33 lecturers.

He thanked the universities for submitting their findings within the timeframe and urged the others to speed up their probes and not protect dishonest lecturers, to demonstrate their transparency.

Using other people’s research work and claiming it as their own is a breach of academic ethics and a disciplinary violation, said Dr. Sirirurg.