Terry Magnuson has resigned as vice chancellor for research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill following federal investigators finding that he plagiarized text in a grant application, Retraction Watch reports.
Last week, the US Office of Research Integrity found that Magnuson engaged in research misconduct and that he, in particular, plagiarized text from three online articles and one published paper in a National Institutes of Health grant application. It further said that Magnuson admitted to the plagiarism and agreed to a settlement under which his research and grant applications would be subject to supervision. At the time, Retraction Watch noted that Magnuson had received $50 million in funding as a principal investigator from NIH during his career.
It now reports that UNC chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and Christopher Clemens, the provost and chief academic officer, said in an email last week that they had accepted Magnuson's resignation, which was effective Friday.
According to the Raleigh News & Observer, Magnuson says in a statement that the lifted texts were meant to serve as placeholders until he could go back to work on those sections, but he lost track of where he was and never did. "I hope this experience serves as teachable moment for us all," he adds in the statement at the News & Observer.