I saw defenders claiming Jason Arday didn't make up data. But some still claim he didn't plagiarise either, so.
Jason Arday: Times analysis finds ‘impossible’ data in his work
Academic research by the former Cambridge professor is littered with inconsistencies, false funding claims and reused quotes, investigation shows
Professor Jason Arday’s academic research contains “impossible” evidence and is littered with inconsistencies, a new Times analysis of his work has found.
An audit of five years of study conducted by the former University of Cambridge scholar, who is the youngest black person ever appointed to a professorship in the institution’s history, suggests that large parts could be fabricated.
Cambridge has faced questions about academic integrity since allegations against Arday - who resigned on Wednesday - first emerged two weeks ago. Arday issued a resignation statement in which he said "the personal cost" of media scrutiny had become "too great" and that he no longer wished to live "under a constant spotlight".
It followed Cambridge launching an investigation because it said new information had emerged about his "academic qualifications and honorary appointments". The investigation will continue despite his resignation.
Arday’s resignation brings to an end a fortnight period that began when the sociology of education professor was initially accused of plagiarising parts of the PhD dissertation he wrote in 2015. Although Arday has now stepped down, questions remain about years of his research.
The findings include false funding declarations; participant quotes that appear to have been taken from another researcher’s own analysis; and “impossible” samples, such as a breakdown of his participants’ genders, which adds up to 110 per cent.
Arday has come under increasing scrutiny after allegations that he plagiarised his PhD thesis and parts of his published academic research. Arday denies plagiarism and was cleared by investigators at Liverpool John Moores University where he completed his doctorate.
Six academics said the new findings unearthed by The Times could indicate fabrication of his research. A further two have separately and publicly accused him of fabrication in his studies.
Robert Dingwall, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Nottingham, and former editor of two international sociology journals, said of the findings: “The cumulative impact is pretty damning, even if some individual examples might have more innocent explanations in terms of sloppy work or coincidence.”
A Cambridge academic in social sciences, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “It’s disastrous for Cambridge, and it’s disastrous for higher education and for the discipline, because we trade on the belief that we do reliable, informed research. Anyone can do their own research but our credibility comes from doing it properly and rigorously.”
The academic who compiled the new analysis, who asked not to be named, said he had begun reading Arday’s work himself because the first public allegations of plagiarism emerged from “an unpleasant source” and he was “suspicious of prejudice against Arday”.
He said: “But when I started reading, I noticed something much more concerning, because the reports of the studies seemed to show signs of fabrication … which is far worse than plagiarism, and so I decided to look more closely. The more I looked, the more problems I found.”
Arday has previously denied fabricating any of his research. He told The Times last week: “It’s more likely that I’ve made a mistake, there’s a clerical error. It’s not that I’ve fabricated.”
“My understanding of English is improving daily,” a Latin-American academic is quoted in one of Arday’s papers. “Sometimes I struggle to articulate clearly and accurately what I would like to say to the healthcare professionals provided at university.”
There was just one issue. Three years prior, he had attributed the same quote to an Asian female undergraduate. It is one of numerous issues identified with his papers.
In a section of his 2021 paper under the heading “Funding”, Arday wrote: “This research was supported by Mind.” Mind confirmed to The Times that they have “no record of any research we funded or commissioned relating to this”.
The Times also understands that Arday has not applied for ethical approval for his published studies, despite working with human participants to discuss sensitive topics of race and mental health.
Giving a webinar in July 2020 about the paper prior to its publication, Arday referred to a participant who took their own life and read out their quote detailing the “violence of these racialised cultures” in the academic world. Although the published paper used near-identical quotes attributed to a male, mixed-heritage academic, there was no reference to this person taking their own life.
Arday told The Times that it was normal to be “selective” and impossible to use every detail. He said: “I have no reason to fabricate or to exaggerate black people’s suffering in academia.”
The 2021 paper was Arday’s second piece of research into mental health and race at universities, after a 2018 paper that he was forced to retract and republish with corrections.
The new analysis has identified more quotes in his 2018 paper that appear to have been plagiarised from a study by the renowned epidemiologist Anjum Memon and his team, which Arday now claims come from his own participants. While some had been identified, The Times has seen evidence that far more quotes are textually or structurally traceable to Memon’s work.
The academic who compiled the analysis said: “The clearest indicator is that some quotes Arday claims are from participants in his study seem to be reworded fragments of analysis in Memon’s paper, turning an academic paper into fictional participant quotes.”
Passing off another academic’s research as if it comes from one’s own interviews would amount to fabricating his data, experts said. Andrew Gelman, a professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University in New York, said: “I can’t think of any alternative explanations of this … but maybe I just don’t have a good enough imagination.”
Arday’s research relies on interviews with samples of black and minority ethnic students and university staff, discussing their experiences of race and mental health.
In one paper, titled “Attempting to break the chain: reimaging inclusive pedagogy and decolonising the curriculum within the academy”, he says he interviewed a sample of 17 participants. But a breakdown of their races, genders and jobs adds up to 18.
Further oddities appear: he quotes four distinct academics, but says he only interviewed three; quotes five mixed-heritage participants, but interviewed only four; and attributes a quote to participant No 21, in a study that only interviewed 17 or 18 people. Similar issues appear in five studies.
Dingwall said there could be “legitimate privacy reasons” for blurring participant numbers, especially if the participants were known to one another. He added: “However, this decision should always be declared and justified. It does not seem relevant to the focus groups described here.”
In another paper, titled “More to prove and more to lose: race, racism and precarious employment in higher education”, the quote in the title comes from participant No 13, described as an Asian female academic.
However, two paragraphs later, participant 13 is described as a black female academic. Arday has previously said that his title quotes are mostly taken from song lyrics, and other papers feature lyrics by REM and Jimmy Cliff.
In a third paper, studying the experiences of black and minority ethnic staff and students during the pandemic, he says 78 per cent of his interviewees were female and 32 per cent male, totalling 110 per cent.
Sentences explaining his methodology were corrected by one journal, due to plagiarism from Memon. However, new analysis finds these same sentences form the basis for his methodology section in four further papers, despite him retracting them once.
Gelman said: “At some point bad-enough sloppiness is a form of fraud, because if you submit and publish a research report, you are implicitly attesting to its honesty and accuracy.”
Another sociologist, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the findings gave him “cause for concern”. He said: “Whether this is fraud, misconduct or something else is a matter for legal judgment or the judgment of the journals and universities involved.
“A wider ethic is that as academics we are responsible for reporting our methods, and using data, accurately. If it was one of my colleagues, I would advise them to contact the editors of the journals to make the corrections or retract the articles.”
The University of Cambridge has previously said that any inquiries must be carried out “by the institution at which the research was carried out”, and that it had passed information to the relevant institutions.
On Wednesday night the university said: “The University of Cambridge has begun an investigation following new information about Professor Arday’s academic qualifications and honorary appointments. In order to ensure a fair process, we will not comment further until this has concluded.
“Separately, there remains a number of ongoing complaints regarding academic misconduct, which are being handled in line with our Misconduct in Research policy. This is consistent with our previous statement on the matter.”
It is not clear what if any statutory mechanism exists to force an independent inquiry. The Office for Students, the independent regulator of higher education in England, only has the remit to investigate course quality, management and free speech, while the separate Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education only takes complaints from students.
The University of Durham, which employed Arday when he published the 2021 paper, said: “We have looked into this, and there are no records that the research discussed at the July 2020 webinar or the subsequent paper accepted in September 2020, fell under our institutional ethical oversight.”
The journal Higher Education, which published his 2021 paper, investigated the ethical approval of the study but concluded that at the time he had submitted, ethical approval was not a condition of publication so there was no breach of their rules.
Its editor, Professor Simon Marginson, told The Times: “Journals do not administer research ethics, universities do: you need to go there in relation to ultimate accountability for the ethical conduct of the research.”
Liverpool John Moores University said in 2025 it received allegations of academic misconduct against Arday. “A confidential procedure was conducted in response to those allegations and Professor Arday’s PhD still stands. We will not comment further on a private matter between the university and a former student.”
Arday did not respond to requests to comment on the new findings.
