Quality and Policies for Academic Integrity: Challenges Faced by Russian Universities

This study looks at academic integrity policies relating to research at Russian universities, focusing on two main aspects of academic misconduct. First, it reviews evidence of massive plagiarism in PhD theses in Russia and discusses possible reasons and consequences. Second, it provides evidence about the impact of the introduction of policies for publication requirements in international journals for Russian faculty members in 2011–2012. This change was associated not only with positive integration with the international research market but also with increasing publication misconduct, including submissions to predatory and hijacked journals and the development of broker companies and paper mills which offer fast publication with low-quality peer review and co-authorship for sale. The case of Russia shows that metrics-driven criteria for research outputs without adequate controls are likely to be accompanied by questionable research practices in a country with a rather corrupted education sphere.