A committee of academics at Duesseldorf´s Heinrich-Heine University voted on Tuesday to begin the probe after hearing the results of a preliminary investigation into whether Annette Schavan failed to properly cite passages of her 1980 thesis in philosophy.
An initial evaluation of Ms Schavan´s PhD thesis found questionable passages on 60 of its 351 pages, according to earlier media reports. The discussion about Schavan´s dissertation and its possible plagiarism had already become more political in recent days after he University of Düsseldorf published a review and set a commitee to discuss and vote the issue.
A decision will be made about the next steps of the investigation at the next meeting of the committee on February 5.
