Asbiro University

Asbiro University (Polish: Uczelnia Asbiro) is a private higher education business school in Łódź, Poland. Asbiro has been embroiled in a controversy after appointing the far-right pseudointellectual Edward Dutton, in 2020, as a "Professor of Evolutionary Psychology" — despite not having a psychology department nor teaching psychology courses.

History
Asbiro was founded in 2006 (it emerged out of an earlier meeting group for entrepreneurs). The university offers entrepreneurship courses, bachelor's degrees in management, sales and marketing, as well as MBA postgraduate studies in business and real estate. Asbiro's lecturers include business owners and CEOs; it advertises itself as "the only school in Poland in which all of the lecturers are businessmen." Asbiro has set up business trips abroad and occasionally hosts seminars for entrepreneurs in Poland.

Accreditation
The Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange recognises Asbiro University as having educational accreditation. Asbiro, however, does not have accreditation to teach doctoral programmes or award PhDs. It is therefore categorised as a "Professional HEI [Higher Education Institution]" opposed to "Academic HEI".

Edward Dutton controversy


On February 29 to March 1, 2020, Asbiro University hosted a seminar on so-called real estate psychology. A guest lecturer at the conference was Edward Dutton who delivered a one hour presentation "Declining Intelligence" to an audience of about a dozen. Dutton's profile on Asbiro's website reveals he has never taught a course and he was only a guest lecturer for the aforementioned seminar in 2020. Dutton often describes himself as a "Professor of Evolutionary Psychology" at Asbiro University, relying on his false credentials even while attacking others for relying on credentialism. This is despite the fact Assiro does not teach undergraduate or postgraduate courses in psychology nor has a psychology department; it does not either have the accreditation required to award PhDs. On his website, Dutton claims to contribute to Asbiro University in an "occasional capacity".

In response to criticism, and PZ Myers describing him as a fraud, Dutton has uploaded evidence on his website that Asbiro University appointed him as "Professor of Evolutionary Psychology" in September 2020. However, considering Asbiro does not teach psychology courses and he is only a guest lecturer — the academic title is at best an.

In 2023, Dutton falsely wrote his academic affiliation was the "Department of Psychology" at Asbiro University on a co-authored paper with Dimitri van der Linden and Curtis S. Dunkel (which he submitted to Acta Psychologica). The preprint later removed this after an email complaint was sent to the journal editorial board and the journals' publisher, Elsevier. An investigation by Elsevier confirmed Asbiro does not have a department of psychology, however, Dutton claims he wrote this on the paper by mistake. 🇱🇮