University of Waterloo, Canada, plans to suspend its mechanical and mechatronics engineering Professor Dongqing Li for four months without pay from April.1 for plagiarism in one of his review papers in 2010.

The review paper titled - Induced-charge electrokinetic phenomena, featured chunks of information picked up from another paper by two American researchers.

Li accepted the findings of the investigation by the University in September.

"I am very sorry for the plagiarism contained in the review paper. I take responsibility for this mistake, and for my delayed action in withdrawing the paper when I learned of the plagiarism," Li said in a press statement of the university.

"Academic and scholarly integrity is the most important aspect of my work. I apologize to those impacted by my actions, including my colleagues and students, the university and the research community," he said.

However, Li will be able to get a free access to the campus.

Feridun Hamdullahpur, the University President and Vice-Chancellor said that academic integrity is expected from all members of our campus community. It is a core value encouraged through education.

Li and L Daghighi's paper contained information from MIT researcher Martin Bazant and University of California Santa Barbara professor Todd Squires' paper.

Bazant told The Record that the only difference between his paper and Li's was that he had "inserted several sections of his own work" toward the end of his paper.

"Li will be without his lab, he'll be without his office, and he'll have to relinquish supervision of his graduate students for four months," Waterloo university relations manager Tim Jackson told CTV. "That's a significant punishment and I think the investigator felt that was reasonable in these circumstances."