Durham don sent on leave

A senior professor at Durham University has been suspended and will now face disciplinary action after an investigation into allegations of plagiarism, writes Tariq Tahir. As The Times Higher reported last week, Tony Antoniou, professor of finance at Durham University's Business School, copied extensively from a paper written by three other academics for one of his own published journal articles.

Professor Antoniou had already quit as dean of the school in early September when the allegations first emerged, citing "personal reasons", but he did not relinquish his professorship.

A Durham spokesman said: "Durham University has now completed its investigation into an allegation that an article published in 1988 by its former dean of Durham Business School, Professor Antonio Antoniou, was plagiarised from a previously published journal article."

He added: "The university takes plagiarism extremely seriously. The matter is now being taken forward under the university's formal disciplinary procedure.

"Professor Antoniou has been suspended from duty with immediate effect by the vice-chancellor, pending the outcome of this disciplinary process."

The spokesman added that the investigation related "to a time before Professor Antoniou joined Durham, and there are no allegations relating to his work at the university".

The spokesman said the investigation has been conducted under the university's established and agreed procedure.

"A specially convened and independent panel of three senior professors independent of the Business School undertook the investigation. One of the professors was a subject specialist from another university."

York University is currently investigating separate allegations of plagiarism surrounding Professor Antoniou's DPhil thesis, which, The Times Higher revealed, contains a large amount of material lifted from a number of sources.

Durham's spokesman added: "Durham is still awaiting the outcome of York University's investigation into the allegation of plagiarism relating to Professor Antoniou's York doctoral thesis." A York University spokesman said its investigation was ongoing.

Durham's investigation relates to a paper the professor wrote in 1988 for the Journal of Business and Society , when he was working at Brunel University. Much of it was lifted directly from a paper written in 1983 by an American student and two Israeli academics for the Journal of Future Markets . Small portions of the original text were omitted and the data and statistics left out.