How many times have they insisted to the world that the appropriation of authorship, plagiarism in the scientific environment is bad, vile, violates the personal non-property rights of genuine authors and contradicts the federal law “On Science and Scientific and Technical Policy”. But there are still those who are not just engaged in the assignment of other people's texts, but even after the release of the corresponding facts with an offended expression filed a lawsuit to protect honor, dignity and business reputation instead of quietly left the profession and pretend that there were never there.

In this case, we are talking about Sergey Viktorovich Kovalev, a former employee of MSTU named after N.E. Bauman, Institute of Problems of Management of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow University of Instrument Engineering and Informatics, the so -called candidate of philosophical sciences.

“The so -called” - because his candidate dissertation, defended in 2003 in the MGTU, was already subjected to examination of Dissernet [1] and, I dare to assure, not all incorrect borrowings found on its pages are contained in the page painting.

So, our hero for a long time was engaged in the borrowing of other people's texts and publishing them under his own name - until in the summer of 2012 the commission for calculating the performance indicators of scientific activity (PRND), created under the scientific council of IPU, took up a planned manner for checking his publications, for which he received bonuses for salaries from the budget of the institute.

The object of attention of the Commission on PRNI became eight so -called Kovalev scientific articles, and the result of the audit was very sad: each of these publications found borrowings from the works of other authors who were not even mentioned in the list of used literature. The protocol of the meeting of the commission, drawn up properly, was submitted by the deputy director of the IP of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who, in a short conversation with Kovalev, introduced him to the conclusions of the commission and outlined the essence of the claims. Our hero pleaded guilt and asked him to give him a chance to improve, but after he realized that the question of his official compliance with his position would be submitted to the nearest meeting of the scientist of the institute, wrote a letter of resignation, which was signed by the director. On August 9, 2012, an order was issued to dismiss Kovalev Sergey Viktorovich from the Institute of Problems of the Office of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Subsequently (the statement of claim dated September 26, 2012), Kovalev disputed the legitimacy of his dismissal in the Cheremushkinsky District Court, citing the fact that during the dismissal the “took advantage of its inexperience” (this was the phrase in the claim), and demanded to restore him at work and recover compensation from the institute for the moral damage caused to him. In February 2013, the court completely refused Kovalev to satisfy his claims, since he was dismissed absolutely legally, and in July of the same year, the Moscow City Court, where he filed with his appeal, left the decision of the district court unchanged.

On the website of our laboratory [2] , in which Kovalev worked, information appeared about the facts of incorrect borrowings in his publications, presented in the form of the protocol of the commission on PRNA, a message about the fact and date of his dismissal from the IPU, as well as his personal data - the last name, first name, middle name, date of birth and photography, previously provided by him for the official website of the institute.

These personal data made by their public bearer themselves were processed strictly for public purposes (in full accordance with the requirements of the Federal Law “On Personal Data”), namely, in order to inform the scientific community about Kovalev’s unethical actions related to the appropriation of authorship.

Such informing was necessary due to the fact that Kovalev promoted his publications in the seal, referring to his belonging to the IPU team and hiding behind the request to accept his articles to the press, allegedly emanating from the author of these lines, which for the time being had no idea about this.

We draw attention to the fact that since the summer of 2012, when incorrect borrowings have been discovered in Kovalev’s publications, until recently, Kovalev did not dispute this fact. However, in February of this year, he filed a lawsuit against the author of these lines - the head of the laboratory in which Kovalev worked, and at the same time the owner of the domain name of the corresponding site. In a statement sent to the Perovsky District Court, Kovalev claimed that his articles are “full -fledged copyright works” that do not contain plagiarism, and demanded recognition of this fact and compensation for moral damage in the amount of 10 million rubles, justifying this severity of moral suffering caused to him by posting on the website.

In confirmation, Kovalev attached a certificate from a medical institution, which he applied for medical help allegedly in connection with a severe and prolonged disease that arose on the basis of seeing on the Internet of his own photograph, accompanied by information about incorrect borrowings that have a place in his so -called scientific work. In addition, in a statement of claim, he reported that he himself was the initiator of the dismissal from the IP of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the site allegedly contained incorrect information that he was dismissed in connection with the presence of incorrect borrowings in his works.

During the court hearings on May 25 and June 30, this multiple lies of the plaintiff was completely refuted.

Firstly, the site never contained information about the reasons for the dismissal of Kovalev from the institute.

Secondly, it was established that when filing a lawsuit in Cheremushkinsky District Court, Kovalev claimed that he was dismissed illegally, while in a new claim against Nizhny Novgorodtsev he insisted that he had resigned on his own initiative. That is, the versions of what happened in different documents by Kovalev varyed as it was beneficial to him.

Thirdly, at the request of the court, an extract from the medical card was received-it turned out that Sergey Viktorovich Kovalev sought medical help and he was diagnosed with moral suffering. The last medical examination showed a successful healing.

Finally, fourthly, and this is the main thing-the facts of the presence of incorrect borrowings in Kovalev’s articles were fully confirmed: (1) the act of independent examination attached to the case file conducted on the initiative, (2) testimony of the deputy director of the IPU, the correspondent of the Russian Academy of Sciences D. A. Novikov, who explained that the conclusion about the presence of incorrect borrowing was made The commission, which was authorized by the scientific council of the institute, (3) by the testimony of Professor G. N. Kalyanov, who recognized in one of the indicated articles by Kovalev, fragments of the text of his scientific monograph, published by him several years before the release of Kovalev's relevant article.

On July 10, 2015, the Perovsky District Court decided to reject all the claims of Kovalev. This decision has not yet entered into legal force and, perhaps, will be appealed by it in the Moscow City Court. However, the longer this story is being discussed, the more wide resonance it receives. Let's hope that his experience will help other colleagues caught in writing off, to realize the perniciousness of attempts to blame their actions on someone except themselves.

The case of Kovalev once again prompts to raise on the agenda the question of the inadmissibility of any statute of limitations in cases of deprivation of a degree: if plagiarism, falsifications, non-existent publications, the decision to award the illegally obtained degree should be canceled regardless of when this happened. This is exactly what is done in most countries of the world, for which the development of science is a socially significant task.

Photo by S. Kovalev from the book: Kovalev S.V. System for controls of industrial organization personnel. M.: Knorus, 2010 (posted on the website www.ipu.ru )

From the editorial office

Another resonant case, during which the lawsuit of the honor and dignity of the written dissertation was also refused, was the claims of the vitaly Pleshkov’s vitaly Pleshkov’s vitaly andrey Zaknakin [3] and Sergey Parkhomenko [4] considered in the Tver court of Moscow [4].

1. Dissernet.org/expertise/kovalevsv2003.htm

2. Inf-econ.ru

3. Zayakin A. Mogilnik of Russian science // New Gazeta. No. 66 of June 26, 2015.

4. Parkhomenko S. Dissernet: The precedent court is won // Echo of Moscow. June 18, 2015.