Volodymyr Onyshchenko: Who Can Benefit from “Plagiarism Scandals”?

I am sure that most readers have not often encountered the procedures for defending dissertations and obtaining scientific degrees. But I have a big request for you: please, pay attention to what is happening now in the higher education system and around the awarding of scientific degrees. After all, this will determine the quality of education that your children will receive or (if you are already applicants or students) you will receive.

In the last year, in parallel with the full-scale war, Ukrainian society has regularly observed another interesting event. We have witnessed numerous so-called “plagiarism scandals.” Never before has the scientific community faced so many accusations of plagiarism. I will not list all the cases – readers can google if they wish and get as much information as possible about how the destruction of the Ukrainian scientific and pedagogical elite is now taking place. It seems that someone has opened a “second front” against the Ukrainian intellectuals.

I would like to add that I, the author of this column, recently learned with great surprise that I am the subject of accusations of plagiarism.

Trying to overcome all emotions, I – in particular, using my example – will try to answer the following questions:

• why it is now possible for so many accusations of plagiarism to arise;
• why this is not good;
• who initiates accusations of plagiarism and how these accusations are made technically;
• what is special about my case.

Let me start with why so many accusations of plagiarism have now become possible. Some formal requirements for dissertations have changed significantly, and it is these – requirements for form, not content – that are now often presented to scientists who defended their dissertations 10, 20 or more years ago.

What do they appear in? The National Agency for Quality in Higher Education (NAZYAVO) is now accusing me of not citing the original sources in all paragraphs of my doctoral dissertation. I am accused of the fact that, having mentioned the original source at the beginning of a large fragment of the dissertation text, I did not add a link to it to each paragraph. I defended my dissertation in 2002, at that time there were completely different requirements for the presentation of work than those existing now. I was guided precisely by these requirements. Back then – almost a quarter of a century ago – there was no need to add a source link to each paragraph if there was a mention in the first paragraph at the beginning. And my dissertation contains all the relevant references to the requirements of that time.

In fact, an approach is now being applied to me and a large number of scientists that contradicts the Constitution of Ukraine, namely the provisions of Article 58 of the Constitution, according to which laws and other legal acts do not have retroactive effect in time, except in cases where they mitigate or cancel liability. No one can be held accountable for acts that at the time of their commission were not recognized by law as an offense.

NAZYAVO officers are now trying to bring us, a large number of scientists, to justice for those acts that at the time of their commission were not recognized by law as offenses.

How do all these processes threaten Ukraine? It’s simple. If government bodies now sanction (and society allows) the persecution of the domestic scientific elite, then we as a nation have no future. If society now swallows the mass persecution of scientists, it will destroy the system of science and higher education in Ukraine.

Who initiates accusations of plagiarism and how are these accusations technically implemented? There is the aforementioned National Agency for Quality in Higher Education (NAZYAVO). In my case, as in most cases, NAZYAVO accepted for consideration the complaint of the candidate of biological sciences Oleh Smirnov regarding the existence of facts of academic plagiarism, in particular, the failure to indicate, in the complainant’s opinion, all necessary references to primary sources.

Here I would like to note that none of the persons whose works I am accused of committing academic plagiarism have filed complaints in the manner prescribed by law for more than 20 years since the defence of my dissertation. The author of the complaint, Oleh Smirnov, is not one of these people. Mr. Smirnov, in principle, cannot be disadvantaged by my dissertation, because he and I have completely different scientific specializations – he is a candidate of biological sciences, and I am a doctor of economic sciences. He has nothing to do with my dissertation.

Why did the biologist now decide to file a complaint against the economist who defended his dissertation 22 years ago? This is a very interesting question that I cannot answer yet. I can assume that Mr. Smirnov acts in someone’s interests. And – I would like to repeat – my case began quite typically. Many authoritative and respected scientists are now accused of committing plagiarism, applying to them standards that were not in force at the time of defending their dissertations.

By the way, quite an interesting detail about Oleh Smirnov. For almost ten years until January 2024, he administered his thematic site “Errors and falsifications in scientific research” on the Russian (!) hosting resource uCoz, owned by the Mail.ru group.

And now I will briefly outline the details.

During the meeting of the NAZYAVO Ethics Committee on 15 March 2024, a situation arose that was quite absurd and generally unique for the legal system of Ukraine. The NAZYAVO Ethics Committee, by its decision, officially formalized the violation of the Constitution of Ukraine, thereby neglecting the norm that clearly indicates that the law does not have retroactive effect.

It all started from the moment when, contrary to the provisions of Articles 19 and 58 of the Constitution of Ukraine, the National Agency for the Quality in Higher Education accepted for consideration the already mentioned complaint of the candidate of biological sciences Oleh Smirnov.

In fact, the NAZYAVO Ethics Committee considered the issue, the subject of which was the compliance of the dissertation work with formal and substantive requirements, taking the side of the complainant, who applied nowadays requirements. I repeat: a quarter of a century ago there were completely different requirements for the design of work than now. And in my dissertation, all the requirements in force at that time were met.

The Higher Attestation Commission of Ukraine, at the time of receiving materials from the specialized academic council after defending the dissertation, did not record any violations during the examination of documents, which is confirmed by the issuance of a Doctor of Economics diploma. Moreover, the expert councils of the Higher Attestation Commission as bodies that exercised control functions on the scientific quality of dissertation research, in accordance with the Procedure for awarding scientific degrees and assigning academic titles, approved by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated 28 June 1997 No. 644, in force at the time of the defence of the doctoral dissertation, were recognized as responsible for the quality and objectivity of the draft certification conclusions prepared by them on the compliance of dissertations with the requirements. Accordingly, a positive certification conclusion from the expert council of the Higher Attestation Commission is evidence of the compliance of my dissertation with the formal and substantive requirements put forward for dissertations during the defence.

In response to NAZYAVO’s request, the V. K. Mamutov Institute of Economic and Legal Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, where I studied for a doctorate, sent the Ethics Committee the conclusion of a working group that verified the facts specified in Smirnov’s complaint. Not only text matches were checked, but also the content of the dissertation. The experts conducted a thorough check and came to the conclusion about the originality of the dissertation research presented more than 20 years ago in defence, about which they sent a detailed report, which, unfortunately, the members of the Ethics Committee did not take into account.

It is important that my doctoral dissertation “Fundamentals of the Formation of Investment Policy in the Region”, by decision of the dissertation council, was examined, in accordance with the mandatory requirements of that time, in the leading institution – the Council for the Study of Productive Forces of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. It received the positive conclusion for compliance with all regulatory and legal requirements, including compliance with state standards.

Of course, the work was also checked using modern anti-plagiarism programmes – the originality of the dissertation text is 99.18%. Controversial issues, amounting to less than 1%, are actually incorrectly made (according to modern requirements) references, but this conclusion was not taken into account by the members of the Ethics Committee.

In conclusion, I would like to add that I am determined to defend my honour and dignity. And the activities of NAZYAVO should attract the attention of the Commissioner of the Parliament of Ukraine for Human Rights and the Educational Ombudsman.

Volodymyr Onyshchenko, Rector of the “National University Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”, Doctor of Sciences (Economics), Professor, Honoured Education Worker of Ukraine, Laureate of the State Prize of Ukraine in Science and Technology

To request a correction, please send an email.