Education Minister Chiang Wei-ling held a press conference on Sunday afternoon to clear his name. That’s after an international journal retracted five articles that had his name on them, on allegations of scholarly misconduct.
The allegations arose following a decision by the Journal of Vibration and Control to retract 60 articles written by Peter Chen, who was formerly an associate professor at National Pingtung University of Education. The journal alleged that those articles had been reviewed by non-existent peers of Chen’s.
The education minister was connected to the scandal because his name appeared as a co-author on five of the 60 retracted articles. But at Sunday’s press conference, the minister said that he had only met Chen briefly on two occasions.
The minister said that five articles were authored jointly by himself and Peter Chen's twin brother, C.W. Chen, and that C.W. Chen had later named his brother as a co-author without notifying the minister.