ArmInfo.The Higher Attestation Commission(HAC) of Armenia initiated the creation of a working group with the participation of specialists from different fields of science, which will coordinate and develop approaches to combat plagiarism. This is stated on the Facebook page of HAC.
"Plagiarism is not only a malignant tumor of the system of assignment of scientific degrees, but also of higher education," the message noted. The first meeting will be held on February 15 at 3:00pm in the meeting room of the EHU Scientific Council. Since 2012, authors of dissertations are required to submit their work to the HAC in electronic form. Also in the National Library of Armenia all dissertations written from 1992 to the present time are digitized. This makes it possible to analyze new work on the subject of plagiarism. However, many applicants for HAC do not approve, and the authors are deprived of the right to re-apply for certification during the year, mainly because of the detected plagiarism. As a result, over the past three years, the number of dissertations defended in Armenia has decreased. "In 2016, 465 theses were defended in Armenia, in 2017 - 394, and in 2018 - only 359", at the end of January of this year head of the Higher Attestation Commission of the National Academy of Sciences Smbat Gogyan stated According to him, there are several reasons. Among them, he called the reduction in the number of scientists, the loss of interest of officials in obtaining a scientific degree, as well as an increase in the number of rejected theses. He said that already from September 2019, the system of accepting applications for the thesis defense in online mode will be introduced, which will provide an opportunity to increase the effectiveness of control over scientific work. At the same time, Gogyan said that the commission is planning to create a position of lawyer who will deal with copyright issues.