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Ratings for Money: How Slovakia Rewards Scientific Fraud

While Slovak politicians calmly keep their academic degrees for copied theses thanks to convenient loopholes in the law, far less visible violations are taking place inside the universities themselves. Dozens of scholars appear to be linked to purchased authorship, data manipulation, and publications in predatory journals. The Plagiat-Navigator project tried to determine how deeply academic fraud has penetrated Slovak science.

Estonian Academic Solitaire: How AI and Paper Mills Are Undermining Science

Estonia spent years building a reputation as being at the forefront of science, but scandals involving violations of research ethics are becoming increasingly common. Professors sharing authorship with falsifiers; associate professors hiding data behind a “confidential” label; mathematicians publishing “math salad” — all of this reflects today’s challenges: the spread of paper mills and the uncontrolled adoption of AI. Sociologists found that more than 40 percent of Estonian researchers had used “gift” authorship. More in the latest installment of the Plagiat-Navigator project.

“Are You Alive?” Talking Plants, Purchased Papers, and Repression: What Is Happening to Serbian Science

In recent years, Serbia has appeared more and more often in news stories about violations of research ethics: plagiarism in the dissertations of high-ranking officials, purchased authorship, mass retractions of publications, dubious international collaborations, and studies verging on scientific curiosities. And also — mass political persecution of scholars and university teachers. Are these episodes accidental, or are they manifestations of one and the same problem? Plagiat-Navigator tried to make sense of the situation.

Bleder Kanalgeruch with an h-index: A Tour of Belgian Academic Magic

A questionable publication in Nature, several fake images, a professor with a dozen suspicious papers, a phantom author with an h-index who turns out to be a Zenit football fan from a fan website — this is not an isolated oddity, but part of a system, a cross-section of today’s Belgian academic environment. More in the latest installment of Plagiarism Navigator.

The Last Car of Science: How Authorship Is Bought and Discoveries Fabricated in Uzbekistan

Geese Instead of Hummingbirds and Optical Services: How Georgia Rewards Imitators of Science

In Georgia’s academic world, an entire industry of research fraud hides behind the mask of high citation indices, prestigious journals, and academy memberships. Professors with international reputations use crude distortions, AI-generated images of geese instead of scientific graphs, and blatant plagiarism to churn out publications and secure grants. Plagiat-Navigator tried to make sense of the situation that has developed in Georgia.

The Perils of the Pivot East: Why Serious Scientists Are Now Teaming Up with Fraudsters

Recently, Russian scientists, whose scientific portfolios include hundreds of significant achievements, have unexpectedly begun utilizing co-authors from the Middle East and Southeast Asia with questionable reputations. Is this phenomenon related to the reorientation of Russian science “to the east”? This is discussed in the new issue of “Plagiarism Navigator.

Ease of Translation: How, with the Start of the War, Translation Plagiarism from Ukrainian Has Gained Popularity in Russian Academic Circles

The development of large language models has dramatically improved the quality of machine translation and made such tools widely accessible throughout the world. These technological advances coincided with the onset of Russia’s full-scale military aggression against Ukraine. As a result, a phenomenon we can characterize as academic looting has emerged and become widespread. This is the subject of today’s issue of Plagiarism Navigator.

The Discovery of Australia: How RSSU Conquered the Distant Continent

In previous issues of Plagiarism Navigator, we explored the journeys of Russian-language academic texts across various countries in Europe and Asia. Today’s issue tells the story of publications in Australian journals, intertwining the Zhukov-Fedyakin family clan from the Russian State Social University (RSSU), former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, former RSSU rector Natalia Pochinok, and a Kuban engineer who infiltrated Australia via a Polish journal.

The De-Dekhkanization of Science: Plagiarize in Russia, Defend in Kyrgyzstan, Publish in France, Lead in Tajikistan

In a previous Plagiarism Navigator investigation, we exposed Iranian scholars who defended stolen Russian dissertations—translated into Tajik—at Tajik universities. They exploited a loophole known as “dissertation tourism,” which offers a backdoor into the global academic community: via Tajikistan and Russia’s Higher Attestation Commission (VAK). Unsurprisingly, Tajik scholars themselves have embraced this backdoor enthusiastically. With the highest number of plagiarized dissertations per capita, Tajikistan tops Dissernet’s global rankings by a wide margin. Today, we examine the career of Kobiljon Khushvakhtzoda—a former provincial accountant who climbed the ranks to become Chairman of Tajikistan’s Academy of Sciences.

Scientific Spoils: How Russian Plagiarists Appropriated Ukrainian Texts

Minister Accused of Plagiarism: Ukrainians Target High-Ranking Official

T-invariant, co-founder of Dissernet Andrey Rostovtsev and community project coordinator Larisa Melikhova continue their “Plagiarism Navigator”. Through individual cases of international academic plagiarism, we examine the global-scale imitation of scholarly activity. In the fifth installment, we examine the case of Andriy Vitrenko, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Education and Science, whose dissertation and academic papers have been flagged for plagiarism.

The Second Iran-Iraq War: How a Professor from Sechenov University Ran a Plagiarism Operation in the Persian Gulf

T-invariant, co-founder of Dissernet Andrey Rostovtsev and community project coordinator Larisa Melikhova continue their “Plagiarism Navigator”. Through individual cases of international academic plagiarism, we examine the global-scale imitation of scholarly activity. In the fourth installment—an investigation centered on an unassuming lecturer from Sechenov University who infiltrated an Iran-Iraq publication scheme in top-tier European and American academic journals, establishing a seamless enterprise trading publications under the guise of his university’s reputation.

Hirsch Index at Market Rate

T-invariant, co-founder of Dissernet Andrey Rostovtsev and community project coordinator Larisa Melikhova continue their “Plagiarism Navigator”. Through carefully selected cases of international scientific plagiarism, we reveal how academic activity is being faked on a planetary scale. In this third installment, we investigate the story of a prominent Serbian scholar who engaged in both purchased co-authorship and blatant plagiarism.

The Iran-Bologna Process in Tajikistan

T-invariant, co-founder of Dissernet Andrey Rostovtsev and community project coordinator Larisa Melikhova continue their “Plagiarism Navigator”. Through individual cases of international academic plagiarism, we examine the global-scale imitation of scholarly activity. In this second installment, we focus on Iranian scholars who defended their dissertations in Tajikistan between 2011 and 2013 under the auspices of the Russian Higher Attestation Commission (VAK).

Russian Science Rode the “Chinese Express” Through Ukraine to Poland

T-invariant, co-founder of Dissernet Andrei Rostovtsev, and community project coordinator Larisa Melikhova are launching “Plagiarism Navigator”. Through select cases of international academic plagiarism, the project reveals how imitation of scholarly activity operates on a planetary scale. The first installment tells the story of a Chinese scholar who defended a dissertation in Kharkiv—a work essentially composed of Ukrainian translations of two Russian-language theses.

“You don’t even represent us”. As a result of falsifications, the Academic Council of IPPI RAS was headed by Dissertnet figures

T-invariant has repeatedly described how the Ministry of Education and Science and the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences are destroying the Institute for Information Transmission Problems (IPPI RAS). The demonstrative cancellation of the contract with the head of the institute, Andrei Sobolevsky, ignoring the opinion of scientists, led to a conflict between the scientific staff and the new directorate, the departure of a number of employees to MIPT, and the appointment of Dmitry Repin, a scientist with a dubious reputation, as deputy director. The Academic Council of IPPI has recently been headed by Dissertnet members.

Sovereign Journals for Sovereign Science: How the System of Scientific Periodicals in Russia is Collapsing

The redistribution of the market for the publication and distribution of academic scientific journals has led not only to serious delays in the publication of scientists’ works, but also to Russia’s self-isolation in the global market of scientific periodicals. By the beginning of December 2024, almost 75% of Russian academic scientific journals have not gone to press on time. This is the price of striving to publish scientific journals with a “Russian identity” and without foreign influence. T-invariant tells us what has already happened to Russian scientific periodicals and what else may happen to them.

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