NUS Business School reviewing visiting professor’s credentials after accusations of academic fraud

SINGAPORE — The business school at the National University of Singapore (NUS) is reviewing the credentials of one of its visiting professors after she was accused of academic fraud. She is alleged to have obtained a doctoral degree from an unlicensed university in Europe and lied about her links to China’s telecommunications company Huawei.

In response to the allegations against Peking University professor Chen Chunhua, NUS Business School on Monday (July 25) told TODAY that it holds the faculty “to the highest standards” and is conducting a review of the adjunct faculty member’s credentials.

“The faculty member will not be teaching any modules pending our review,” the school said.

A check on the school’s website showed that Ms Chen is no longer listed there and her profile appears to have been removed.

NUS Business School did not respond to TODAY’s question on whether the university did remove Ms Chen’s profile from its website. It also did not state what her role was in the school.

Hong Kong news media South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported last Friday that Ms Chen’s educational qualifications became a lightning rod for the online community in China who had fact-checked her credentials after Huawei issued a public statement refuting her ties to the firm and its founder Ren Zhengfei.

Huawei said earlier this month that it had seen “over 10,000 online articles” featuring Ms Chen’s comments of the firm, with some referring to her as a “Huawei military adviser”, SCMP reported.

Ms Chen’s professional biography listed her as having obtained a doctorate of business administration from the European University of Ireland in 2001. SCMP reported that it is not included in a list of 25 Irish universities acknowledged by China’s education ministry.

A check by TODAY found no official website for such a university while Times Higher Education — a British magazine that reports specifically on issues related to higher education — said in an article that the education ministry in Ireland had previously opened an investigation into an operation called “European University of Ireland” that appeared to operate from an accommodation in Dublin “without official sanction”.

SCMP said in its report that Ms Chen, 58, is now the dean of Beijing International MBA Business School at Peking University, as well as a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Business Administration at the South China University of Technology.

In a separate case earlier in May, an assistant finance professor at Singapore Management University left the institute after allegedly making false claims about academic writing.

Ms Margaret Zhu allegedly lied about receiving conditional acceptances for two academic papers, titled Real Effects of Corporate Hedging and Corporate Derivatives Hedging in the Past Two Decades, from the Journal of Finance and Review of Financial Studies respectively.