How Dissernet figures advise the Federation Council

University Transparency Laboratory (Lupa), with the help of the free online com­mu­ni­ty Dissernet, ana­lyzed the activ­i­ties of expert coun­cils of the upper house of the Russian par­lia­ment. It turned out that 10% of experts advis­ing sen­a­tors on the laws they pass have vio­la­tions of aca­d­e­m­ic ethics - from oppos­ing “pla­gia­rists” to sub­sti­tut­ing data in their own works and cheat­ing. Lupa, togeth­er with T-invari­ant, tells you who these vio­la­tors are and why such experts influ­ence our lives more than it seems. 

What do expert councils do

Back in April 2023, Vladimir Putin gave instruc­tions to opti­mize expert coun­cils under fed­er­al exec­u­tive author­i­ties and state cor­po­ra­tions. In order to form a uni­fied exam­i­na­tion sys­tem, they planned to attract rep­re­sen­ta­tives of pub­lic and pri­vate com­pa­nies. However, despite the fact that almost a year has passed, no “opti­miza­tion” has hap­pened in the expert councils.

According to the pro­vi­sions on expert coun­cils, which each coun­cil has their they should assist sen­a­tors in their work and advise on emerg­ing issues , thus tak­ing part in law­mak­ing. “These are the same bod­ies as those under the State Duma, min­istries and oth­er depart­ments,” says Vladlena Pushkareva, an ana­lyst at the Duma Bingo project, which stud­ies the activ­i­ties of the Russian cham­bers of par­lia­ment. — [The expert coun­cils] bring togeth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Federation Council and experts from the­mat­ic sec­tors. They dis­cuss a vari­ety of issues, some­times dis­cussing spe­cif­ic bills and ask­ing for the opin­ions of these experts. At these meet­ings, their par­tic­i­pants can the­o­ret­i­cal­ly lob­by for some amend­ment or clause in the draft law.” 

“Not all depart­ments pub­lish the list of experts and min­utes of meet­ings,” con­tin­ues Pushkareva. — At the same time, it often includes rep­re­sen­ta­tives of large com­pa­nies, for exam­ple, Gazprom, Rostec, Novatek and oth­ers. Since the sys­tem is opaque and we do not know how and on what basis peo­ple are recruit­ed there, we can say that it iscor­rup­tion-inten­sive area. It needs to be made more transparent.” 

It is dif­fi­cult to say how influ­en­tial such advice is, Pushkareva clar­i­fies. “But if big com­pa­nies send their rep­re­sen­ta­tives there, it means they play some role [in deci­sion mak­ing],” she says. 

And even among the Federation Council experts there are peo­ple with vio­la­tions of sci­en­tif­ic ethics. The University Transparency Laboratory esti­mat­ed that at least 10% of mem­bers of the expert coun­cils of the upper house of Parliament have some kind of vio­la­tions found by Dissernet: they defend­ed pla­gia­rized dis­ser­ta­tions or helped defend oth­ers, opposed such defens­es, or made “shame­ful deci­sions” by refus­ing to deprive degrees for borrowing.

Plagiarist senators and consultants without a degree: who is on the Soviets under Matvienko

The expert advi­so­ry bod­ies in the Federation Council are divid­ed into sev­er­al groups. The first is expert coun­cils under the Chairman of the Federation Council, under the com­mit­tees of the Federation Council and oth­er coun­cils. Valentina Matvienko, as Chairman of the Federation Council, inter­acts with three coun­cils: sci­en­tif­ic expert coun­cil, coun­cil on intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty issues, and coun­cil on inter­ac­tion with civ­il soci­ety insti­tu­tions. Matvienko, as a per­son occu­py­ing one of the high­est posi­tions in the state, is also the chair­woman of each of these coun­cils. They are called upon to assist in the exer­cise of its powers. 

In each of them there are peo­ple who are involved in Dissernet. They become those who vio­lat­ed the norms of sci­en­tif­ic ethics or wrote a work that has signs of sci­en­tif­ic fail­ure. A vio­la­tion of sci­en­tif­ic ethics can be, for exam­ple, con­sult­ing assis­tance or sup­port for work that has been copied from some­one else’s work, and much more. 

All Of the 25 peo­ple who are mem­bers of the sci­en­tif­ic expert coun­cil under the chair­man, four have var­i­ous short­com­ings in their dis­ser­ta­tions and arti­cles. The oth­er two coun­cils also have indi­vid­u­als who do not com­ply with sci­en­tif­ic ethics. Of the 39 mem­bers of the Intellectual Property Council, Dissernet found vio­la­tions among three. And in the coun­cil for inter­ac­tion with civ­il soci­ety insti­tu­tions, out of 35 mem­bers, there are five. 

One of the mem­bers of the sci­en­tif­ic expert coun­cil, which is head­ed by Valentina Matvienko, Sergey Ryazantsev - defen­dant “Dissernet”, hav­ing a total of 15 vio­la­tions. He is also a mem­ber of the Presidium of anoth­er coun­cil - on social devel­op­ment under the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy. Six peo­ple whose sci­en­tif­ic super­vi­sor he act­ed were found to have seri­ous vio­la­tions in their dis­ser­ta­tions, and in two cas­es they even tried to deprive them of their aca­d­e­m­ic degrees for pla­gia­rism, but they did not deprive them. This does not pre­vent him from head­ing the Institute of Demographic Research of the Federal Research Sociological Center (FNISC) of the Russian Academy of Sciences and head­ing the Department of Demographic and Migration Policy at MGIMO.

Dissernet also found vio­la­tions among oth­er mem­bers of the same coun­cil: Rector of RUDN University Oleg Yastrebov and Deputy President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Talia Khabrieva. In the doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion of the rec­tor of RUDN Yastrebov, for exam­ple, “Dissernet” found a sub­sti­tu­tion, name­ly, a replace­ment of years of research when describ­ing sta­tis­ti­cal data and ref­er­ences to works that are not in the list of ref­er­ences. Talia Khabrieva was sci­en­tif­ic super­vi­sor of the doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion of the head of the SVR Sergei Naryshkin, in which dis­cov­ered large-scale bor­row­ing.

In the Council for Intellectual Property, vio­la­tions were found by Doctor of Economic Sciences and RAS expert Elena Bogdanova, who was the sci­en­tif­ic super­vi­sor of five vio­la­tors and three times opposed can­di­dates for the degree, two of whom end­ed up were deprived of it for vio­la­tions. Also includ­ed in Dissernet were the head of the Republic of Mordovia, Artem Zdunov, for a writ­ten-off dis­ser­ta­tion, and a mem­ber of United Russia, rec­tor of the Institute of Economics and Management in Industry, Alexey Ryabinin, who helped write three dis­ser­ta­tions, in which par­tial pla­gia­rism was even­tu­al­ly found.

The last coun­cil under the Chairman of the Federation Council, where five mem­bers have vio­la­tions, is the Council for Interaction with Civil Society Institutions. Here Dissernet found a copied dis­ser­ta­tion from a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the Orenburg region, Elena Afanasyeva, who, as a State Duma deputy, became one of the ini­tia­tors of the law ban­ning the adop­tion of Russian orphans by American cit­i­zens. Violations in the dis­ser­ta­tion were also found among the sen­a­tor from Udmurtia Lyubov Glebova, and copied dis­ser­ta­tions were found among the sen­a­tors from the Amur Region and the Republic of Khakassia Artem Sheikin and Valentina Petrenko.

The biggest “offenders”

Half of the Federation Council com­mit­tees have expert advice. No vio­la­tions have yet been found only in small expert coun­cils under the Committee on International Affairs and on Tax Policy and Financial Market under the Budget Committee. But even if no vio­la­tions are found, this does not mean that they do not exist, notes one of the founders of Dissernet, Andrei Zayakin.

“If we saw that, say, the Faculty of Economics of the Russian State University for the Humanities has already pro­duced about hun­dred false dis­ser­ta­tions, we did not study a hun­dred oth­er uni­ver­si­ties in Moscow, but stud­ied only the Russian State University for the Humanities, one spe­cif­ic depart­ment and found hun­dreds more [vio­la­tions] there. Hence there is some selec­tive effect,” explains Zayakin. “Therefore, indi­vid­ual sci­en­tif­ic schools, uni­ver­si­ties, and spe­cial­ists are more wide­ly rep­re­sent­ed and [stud­ied] more deeply than others.” 

Dissernet found the largest num­ber of vio­la­tions in the expert coun­cil of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building. It con­sists of quite a lot of peo­ple - and out of 197 coun­cil mem­bers, 37 have var­i­ous vio­la­tions: from par­tic­i­pat­ing in “shame­ful deci­sions” of dis­ser­ta­tion coun­cils to depriv­ing a coun­cil mem­ber of a sci­en­tif­ic degree due to plagiarism.

Lawyers have become the biggest offend­er­sa­mong all par­tic­i­pants of expert coun­cils, even though Dissernet usu­al­ly paid less atten­tion to them when study­ing dis­ser­ta­tions. “We had a sport­ing inter­est - to file appli­ca­tions for depri­va­tion of our aca­d­e­m­ic degrees [for vio­la­tions]. The most inter­est­ing thing was to sub­mit [appli­ca­tions] for econ­o­mists, and not, for exam­ple, foresters,” explains Zayakin. “That’s why econ­o­mists were stud­ied much more than oth­ers. In addi­tion, there are qual­i­ta­tive dif­fer­ences between the way econ­o­mists and lawyers, for exam­ple, steal. 

Economists usu­al­ly steal in whole chunks and some­times fal­si­fy data, which is proof that no research was con­duct­ed: for exam­ple, they change [in the study] Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. This is very con­ve­nient [to prove], and it usu­al­ly impress­es even chron­ic swindlers and villains. 

With lawyers, every­thing is dif­fer­ent. Quite often they take, per­haps, some­one else’s text in its entire­ty, but heav­i­ly cut and mod­i­fy it. Therefore, lawyers were not in first place.”

Doctor of Legal Sciences Elena Lukyanova believes that such a num­ber of vio­la­tors are among lawyers because “it is pres­ti­gious to be a leg­is­la­tor with an aca­d­e­m­ic degree.” “[It] sounds proud. Deputies and sen­a­tors are paid extra for aca­d­e­m­ic degrees,” she con­tin­ues. — There are many dis­ser­ta­tion work­shops among depart­men­tal law uni­ver­si­ties, and the dis­ser­ta­tion coun­cil of the Higher Attestation Commission is full of left-wing sci­en­tists of a cor­rupt nature. Real sci­en­tists don’t want to go there. [Andrei] Zayakin and I tried to improve legal dis­sents. It did­n’t work out. Including because of the unique rep­u­ta­tion of the Higher Attestation Commission.”

Especially among oth­ers stands out the rec­tor of the Moscow State Technical University of Civil Aviation (MSTU GA) Boris Eliseev, deprived of the aca­d­e­m­ic degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences, but retain­ing the posi­tion of rec­tor uni­ver­si­ty He is also still a mem­ber of the Board of the Federal Air Transport Agency, and in 2022, not with­out pridetoldthat he was the first to cre­ate a uni­ver­si­ty pro­gram for train­ing drone oper­a­tors. span>

Another “vio­la­tor” is Evgeny Vavilin, head of the Department of Civil Law at the Moscow State Law University named after O. E. Kutafin. According to data “Dissernet”, he replaced data in his sci­en­tif­ic works. 

Several mem­bers of the coun­cil were found to have pla­gia­rism in their own dis­ser­ta­tions, includ­ing Igor, pro­fes­sor of the Notary Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences Moskalenko and pro­fes­sor Department of Criminalistics, Faculty of Law, Moscow State University Lev Bertovskiy, head of the RUDN University Lyudmila Bukalerova Dmitry, Director of Internal Audit at NPK Uralvagonzavod Melnova, notary Ia Gorbunkova and Vice-President of the FPA, head of the Chamber of Lawyers of the Moscow Region Alexey Galoganov.

Various vio­la­tions: from par­tial pla­gia­rism in dis­ser­ta­tions to oppo­si­tion to those who copied their work - also found in lawyer and author of books Lyudmila Grudcyna, judge of the Second Court of Cassation Denis Gorshunova and Secretary of the Plenum of the Supreme Court Victor Momotova, pro­fes­sor at the Vladimir All-Russian State University of Justice Gureev, First Deputy Director of the IGP RAS Nikolai Mikhailova and 24 more people.

Members of oth­er expert coun­cils also have vio­la­tions, albeit few­er: the Committee on Social Policy and the Committee on Agricultural and Food Policy and Environmental Management. The lat­ter has a total of more than 250 peo­ple, among them at least 11 peo­ple have violations.

“Violators” in other councils

In addi­tion to expert coun­cils, the Federation Council also has coun­cils for the devel­op­ment of cer­tain areas, for exam­ple, the Council on gasi­fi­ca­tion of the con­stituent enti­ties of the Russian Federation, on local self-gov­ern­ment or on the devel­op­ment of the Far East, the Arctic and Antarctic. 

At the end of 2023, leg­is­la­tors cre­at­ed the six­teenth coun­cil for mil­i­tary-patri­ot­ic edu­ca­tion of cit­i­zens. What exact­ly it will do and who will be part of it is not yet known. As a rule, in such coun­cils, in addi­tion to experts, there are pub­lic offi­cials: min­is­ters, gov­er­nors, sen­a­tors of the Federation Council.

This coun­cil is a body that pro­vides lob­by­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for a range of pri­vate and qua­si-pub­lic com­pa­nies. It con­sists of a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the leg­isla­tive and exec­u­tive pow­ers super­vis­ing the Far East and the Arctic, which opens up wide oppor­tu­ni­ties for lob­by­ing pri­vate inter­ests on this platform

This is how Ilya Shumanov, direc­tor of the project “Arctida”.

The researcher explains that in addi­tion to civ­il ser­vants, this Council also includes rep­re­sen­ta­tives of large busi­ness­es asso­ci­at­ed with Arctic projects: for exam­ple, the Novatek com­pa­ny, which is con­trolled by Leonid Mikhelson togeth­er with Vladimir Putin’s friend Gennady Timchenko. Shumanov also draws atten­tion to the fact that at the lev­el of orga­ni­za­tion­al archi­tec­ture it is indi­cat­ed that the Chairman of the Council may be one of the first deputies of the rel­e­vant com­mit­tee of the Federation Council:

It seems that this posi­tion was cre­at­ed for Senator Karelova, whose son, Evgeny Karelov, accord­ing to the lat­est infor­ma­tion, worked at the PPK Russian Ecological Operator. PPK REO is also rep­re­sent­ed in this Council through the Association for the Promotion of the Circular Economy “Resource”, which is almost the only envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion in this expert group. This is a fair­ly com­mon sit­u­a­tion of con­flict of inter­est, which, of course, will go unno­ticed by sen­a­tors, since it is ben­e­fi­cial to REO and the fam­i­ly of Senator Karelova.

In gen­er­al, there are few­er vio­la­tions of sci­en­tif­ic ethics in these coun­cils than in expert coun­cils, since they con­sist of few­er peo­ple. Dissernet found the largest num­ber of vio­la­tors from the total num­ber of coun­cil mem­bers in the Council on Agro-Industrial Complex and Environmental Management, which is head­ed by Andrei Yatskin, a sen­a­tor from the Rostov region and a can­di­date of legal sci­ences. Of the 38 peo­ple, vio­la­tions of sci­en­tif­ic ethics were found in five. For exam­ple, Senator from the Republic of Ingushetia Belan Khamchiev, who is a mem­ber of this coun­cil. in 2016 they tried to deprive him of his doc­tor­ate in eco­nom­ics. “Dissernet” dis­cov­ered in his dis­ser­ta­tion there were large-scale bor­row­ings with­out indi­cat­ing the source and sub­sti­tu­tion of data, and Khamchiev defend­ed him­self at the Russian State Correspondence Agrarian University, like sev­er­al oth­er can­di­dates with the same sci­en­tif­ic con­sul­tant - Elena Semenova. Despite this, the sen­a­tor retained his degree.

Among the vio­la­tors in this coun­cil were two more sen­a­tors: from the Kamchatka Territory and the Tambov Region. The sen­a­tor from Kamchatka, Boris Nevzorov, “Dissernet” found large-scale bor­row­ing from Senator Alexander Nikitina from Tambov - also bor­row­ings, but in a trans­lat­ed arti­cle , as well as oppo­si­tion and sci­en­tif­ic guid­ance in works with plagiarism. 

Two oth­er “vio­la­tors” work in uni­ver­si­ties: Andrey Paptsov, who was an oppo­nent and sci­en­tif­ic super­vi­sor of peo­ple deprived of a degree, and also par­tic­i­pat­ed in mak­ing “shame­ful deci­sions”, is a mem­ber of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences and heads the Federal Scientific Center for Agrarian Economics and Social Development of Rural Territories at the All-Russian Research Institute of Agricultural Economics. The lat­est “vio­la­tor” is pro­fes­sor, cor­re­spond­ing mem­ber of the Russian Academy of Sciences and head of the depart­ment of eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty analy­sis and fore­cast­ing at Rostov State University Lyudmila Usenko, who, accord­ing to Dissernet, wasthe sci­en­tif­ic super­vi­sor of the work where pla­gia­rism was found. 

Text: Tatyana Kolobakina, Sasha Angel, Tamila Norkulova

Саша Ангел, Тамила Норкулова, Татьяна Колобакина  4.04.2024

corruption, PhD, Russian Academy of Science, russian scientists