Pál Schmitt scientific misconduct controversy

The Pál Schmitt academic misconduct scandal refers to allegations of plagiarism concerning the 1992 doctoral thesis and the circumstances of the doctoral defence of the President of Hungary Pál Schmitt, which led to Schmitt's resignation from his presidential post. The scandal broke in January 2012, when Hungarian news organizations published a number of articles claiming that about 197 pages of Schmitt's 215-page thesis had been lifted from works by other, foreign scholars, without giving appropriate credit.

On 11 January 2012, a Hungarian news portal, hvg.hu published an article which claimed that material that amounts to around 180 of the 215 pages of Pál Schmitt's 1992 doctoral (dr. univ.) thesis, titled "Az újkori olimpiai játékok programjának elemzése" ("An analysis of the programme of the modern Olympics"), had been lifted from a 1987 manuscript by Bulgarian sports researcher Nikolay Georgiev, together with a page's worth of material from a work by Hristo Meranzov and Georgiev. On 19 January, news organizations found that an additional 17 pages had been copied from a paper by German sport sociologist Klaus Heinemann. The late Georgiev's daughter said she did not know of any cooperation between Schmitt and her father in the preparation of Georgiev's work. Heinemann denied any knowledge of Schmitt, and expressed his concerns about the plagiarism allegations.

Further concerns about a conflict of interest were raised when it was reported that multiple members of Schmitt's thesis committee had also been members of the Hungarian Olympic Academy and the Hungarian Olympic Committee, organizations both headed by Schmitt at the time his title was awarded.

After the initial report, Schmitt denied the allegations, saying that no plagiarism took place, as he had listed Georgiev's work in the list of works cited. The President made no further comments, including any comments about the allegation regarding the Heinemann text, until a radio interview in which he shrugged off the claim, saying that it was natural for all such works to include a certain amount of common "core material". A number of scholars started a petition asking for a fair and transparent investigation of the allegations. Although they have PhD degrees, the Hungarian National News Agency (MTI) referred to them as doctoral students.

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