Tree of dissertation connections

Another story about RGSU, MFUA and RAO

Recently, the Dissernet community has turned its attention to the academic performance of the leadership of two capital universities, which are popularly called “family” universities. These are the Russian State Social University (RGSU) and the Moscow University of Finance and Law (formerly the Academy, MFLA). One is a state university, the other is not. But this does not change matters, because they issue diplomas of the same state standard.

Why did these two universities receive special attention from hunters of fake dissertations? The fact is that nepotism, like, for example, the passion for collecting high ranks and awards or being photographed with top officials of the state, for some reason is not characteristic of those who spend many years of their lives on serious scientific work. Why is this so? Psychologists will probably be able to answer this question. The Dissernet community can only test this hypothesis, suggested by life itself.

Last time we wrote about the rector of RGSU Lidia Fedyakina [1]. Since then, her younger sister and the pride of the university, Doctor (the youngest Doctor of Science in Russia) of Economic Sciences Galina Zhukova [2], also working as a teacher at RGSU, has appeared in the Dissernet community feed; Vitaly Sergeevich Fedyakin, the rector’s husband, who recently worked as the RGSU vice-rector for computer science [3]; Vice-Rector for Research Galina Ivanovna Efremova [4].

The figurines at the Financial and Legal Academy were no less interesting. Meet the dissertators and dissertations: rector of MFLA, honorary worker of higher professional education of the Russian Federation, professor, doctor of pedagogical sciences Alexey Grigorievich Zabelin [5]; his wife and first vice-rector of MFLA, and part-time rector of the affiliated International Humanitarian-Linguistic Institute (MGLI) Galina Arkadyevna Zabelina [6]; their children: Oleg, also the first vice-rector and part-time rector of the Moscow University of Public Administration (MUGU) [7], and Svetlana, vice-rector of the MFLA and former rector of the Moscow Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering [8].

Dissernet's expectations were completely justified. In each of these cases, we have examples of massive incorrect borrowing, which in no way resembles the errors made when quoting.

A legitimate question arises. More precisely, two. First: what can a university teach, run by people with fake academic degrees (by the way, formally required to occupy these positions)? Apparently, this is what - on the MGLI website it is unequivocally stated: “MGLI departments support student science by helping students write research projects...” Offers of “consulting services” in companies offering the production of diplomas and dissertations on a “turnkey” basis are formulated in approximately the same way.

So these gentlemen are not scientists, but they just so successfully managed to locate themselves in these places, apparently with someone’s help and constant support. Question two: whose?

As it turns out, Dissernet is becoming a powerful tool capable of providing answers to such questions. A constantly expanding relational database of fake dissertations allows you to build a tree of connections: who, where, when, from what sources, with whose help.

Let us give a small, at first glance, example. In 2007, a RAO official defended his Ph.D. thesis. But this is not quite an ordinary official, but the head of the department for ensuring personnel, legal and international policy of the Russian Academy of Education, Pyotr Nikitovich Gaponyuk. This is what his dissertation looked like:

Borrowing table

The scientific supervisor at this defense was the rector of the MFLA himself, who had just defended his doctoral thesis a year before this event, the link to the coloring of which is given above. So what do we see? Almost exactly 70 pages of the supervisor’s doctoral thesis migrated into the student’s master’s thesis. Another dozen and a half pages were written by the official opponent of the dissertation of the scientific adviser (Vladimir Viktorovich Konovalov). Do you feel a tree growing?

We will return to the question of where this tree grows from more than once. for updates In the meantime, stay tuned to www.dissernet.org .

Andrey Rostovtsev