A group of 612 top Romanian researchers have published a letter of protest about a recent decision by Romanian authorities to suspend the access of Romanian universities and researchers to important electronic collections of scientific journals and data bases, according to a Contributors.ro report. The move, they say, leads to the isolation of the Romanian research community to internationals scientific information.
The suspension of Romanian researchers' access to the international scientific articles of Thomson Reuters was the result of a decision by the Education Ministry in Bucharest to postpone contracts for new services.
The effects: Romanian researchers' impossibility to se whether the issues they want to approach had been researched before and to detect possible acts of plagiarism as comparison articles are no longer available, says Dragos Ciuparu, former head of Romania's National Authority for Scientific Research.
The signatories of the letter include members of the Romanian Academy, deans, heads of departments and research labs.
The full text of the letter, in Romanian, is available here
The access to the data bases of international scientific articles comes as the new Romanian government led by Victor Ponta has been hit since the very start of its activity by accusations of plagiarism against proposed ministers. The accusations culminated earlier this week with accusations in international media that Victor Ponta himself was allegedly involved in acts of plagiarism in the case of his 2003 PhD thesis. A group of 612 top Romanian researchers have published a letter of protest about a recent decision by Romanian authorities to suspend the access of Romanian universities and researchers to important electronic collections of scientific journals and data bases, according to a Contributors.ro report. The move,
