The Union of Signers

It will be possible to deprive anyone of the degree for plagiarism only after the court recognizes the fact of violation of copyright. The Ministry of Education and Science proposes to the regulation on the award of scientific degrees, the "Vedomosti" reports .

The adoption of this proposal of the department will mean “complete victory of plagiators,” says Andrey Zazakin, one of the founders of Dissernet. "Why crooks during the three years of the existence of" Dissernet "could not think of such a simple solution to their problems - I don’t know," he said.

After the entry into force of this provision, not a single statement about the deprivation of the degree of Dissernet will not be able to submit, said Zayakin. The movement simply will not have court decisions on copyright violations. "Only the one whose rights are violated can apply to the court. Since the" victims "of the plagiators do not go to court, the" disserter "will not be able to file a degree anymore," said Zazakin. According to him, the dissociates that now selling degrees will be able to resume their business.

On May 20, journalist Sergei Parkhomenko gave in the Office of Economic Security and Countering Corruption of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow an explanation of the activities of the Dissernet community . The reason was the statement of the deputy of the Moscow City Duma Alexander Smetanov, who asked to check the financial activities of Dissernet. According to the deputy, the movement declares its goal to struggle with "falsifications", "forgery" and "illegal fraud" in the field of defense of dissertations, however, "there are no instructions on the successes in this area on the Dissernet website." From the point of view of Smetanov, one should suspect the use of the raised funds "not on the declared goals, but for personal enrichment, which" can be considered as a sign of a crime "Fraud" provided for in Article 159 of the Criminal Code.

"The deputy Smetanov would very much like to come to the VAK meeting, which will consider the issue of depriving his doctoral degree, carelessly waving a decree on the initiation of a criminal case under the" fraud "against the founders of Dissernet." It seems to him that this will increase his chances not to lose the degree of a doctor of economic sciences. They have illusions of scientists, "we will have illusions. Parkhomenko.

On June 1, the Supreme Certification Commission under the Ministry of Education and Science deprived Smetanov of a doctoral degree . VAK experts admitted that the deputy allowed incorrect borrowing in his dissertation.

The network community "Dissernet" unites scientists and journalists identifying plagiarism in the scientific work of famous people. Studies of Dissernet began in January 2013. Since then, the community activists have already exposed dozens of cases of plagiarism in the dissertations of politicians, public figures and representatives of the leadership of universities.

So in November 2015 it turned out that among the proven dissertations of the current rectors of the Russian universities, 21 percent of the work turned out to be false. "Dissernet" checked the work of 311 rectors who have been defended over the past 15 years. In 66 dissertations, extensive borrowings were found.