Unair Specialist Doctor Allegedly Plagiarised Thesis
A dentist with the initials SA in Surabaya claims to be the victim of plagiarism of his scientific work by another dentist, identified as FLL. The work was allegedly used as a thesis to complete a specialist education programme in oral surgery at Universitas Airlangga (Unair) without the owner’s permission.
SA’s legal representative, Muhammad Taufiq, stated that his party is now preparing to take the case to criminal court after attempts to resolve it through the internal mechanism of Unair’s Faculty of Dentistry (FKG) were deemed unsatisfactory. “We have given the opportunity for this matter to be resolved first through the university’s internal mechanism,” Taufiq said on Tuesday (14/7).
Taufiq explained that a report regarding the alleged breach of academic integrity was submitted to the FKG on 12 May 2026. The internal route was deliberately pursued first as a gesture of good faith to resolve the matter academically. However, the process has not yielded a satisfactory resolution for the victim. Taufiq even assessed that the ethics examination conducted by the faculty was unprofessional. He revealed that the invitation letter for the hearing was received suddenly and was not delivered through the legal counsel. Furthermore, when his client was questioned, the complainant was not accompanied by a legal advisor.
“When the complainant was being questioned, we observed that the examination process was not conducted properly. The ethics committee appeared unprepared and did not understand the substance of the plagiarism issue,” he said. The legal team also presented a number of documents claimed to be evidence of the alleged plagiarism, including document metadata, the history of the manuscript’s preparation, conversations, and the results of a comparison of the scientific works, which reportedly showed similarities between the manuscript owned by SA and the thesis used by FLL. The written work was used as one of the graduation requirements for the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Specialist Doctor Education Programme (PPDS).
Taufiq added that there were two scientific papers worked on by SA between 2021 and 2023. He claims these works were published as a thesis by FLL without including SA’s name as the owner of the work. Taufiq also highlighted the results of the ethics committee’s examination. According to him, the consideration section of the ruling stated that there were identical similarities between the complainant’s scientific work and the reported party’s thesis, as well as collaboration in the preparation of the written work. In this case, the reported party was only recommended to receive a sanction in the form of a written warning.
On that basis, his party plans to revisit the Unair Rectorate next week to request a review of the decision. In addition to pursuing the administrative route, the legal counsel is also preparing legal steps by reporting the case to the Surabaya Metropolitan Police (Polrestabes Surabaya) if no objective and transparent resolution is found. “All evidence has been prepared. If there is no objective and transparent resolution, we will bring this matter to the legal domain,” Taufiq asserted.
Meanwhile, the Head of the Public Relations and Protocol Centre (PHMP) of Universitas Airlangga, Pulung Siswantara, acknowledged that Doctor SA’s report had gone through an ethics hearing held by the university. As a result, Doctor FLL, as the reported party, was sanctioned with a written reprimand by the ethics commission. “That’s it, the result of the ethics hearing decision is a written reprimand,” he said. When asked for confirmation regarding the complainant’s dissatisfaction with the ethics decision, Pulung stated that it was perfectly valid. He said the complainant was welcome to file an appeal according to the procedure to the university. “If his legal counsel considers it inappropriate, then if they want to appeal, they can go through the existing mechanism, that’s fine. It’s just that this is already the result of the faculty ethics commission. There are professors on it,” he stressed.