Cambridge professor Jason Arday faces plagiarism claims involving more than 100 thesis passages

The paper compared Arday’s 401-page 2015 Ph.D. thesis with a 2009 dissertation by education scholar Paula Zwozdiak-Myers and identified more than 100 passages it described as identical or nearly identical. Arday cited Zwozdiak-Myers 17 times, but many of the questioned passages did not credit her where the language appeared.

The documented allegations go beyond one thesis:

• Nathan Cofnas published side-by-side comparisons of 36 thesis passages. Separately, Purdue biochemist David Sanders reviewed a 63-page dossier prepared for Times Higher Education and told Retraction Watch he found “extensive plagiarism.”
• A 2023 correction to Arday’s 2018 paper changed or removed 18 of 31 interview quotations and deleted claims about NVivo coding and an independent review of transcripts. Retraction Watch found that some original quotations resembled language attributed to participants in another published study.
• Cambridge says Arday was cleared of allegations involving his thesis and journal articles. Liverpool John Moores, which awarded the doctorate, also says its investigation found no plagiarism. Neither university has publicly released a detailed comparison explaining those conclusions.

Arday’s widely publicized biography is separate from the plagiarism evidence. Arday and public profiles have said he:

• did not speak until age 11 and could not read or write until 18;
• was a youth player at a professional football club and was on the verge of turning professional in snooker;
• completed 30 marathons in 35 days, then 300 miles on a treadmill in three days;
• worked with more than 70 charities and raised more than £5 million, according to a 2024 profile.

Those claims should be read as biographical claims, not as facts disproved by the text comparisons. The marathon challenge had a contemporaneous fundraising page and press coverage; the other claims have largely been repeated from profiles and Arday’s own accounts.