Long time readers know that I occasionally comment on the retraction of academic papers, often found through Retraction Watch (link on the right), looking at patterns and wondering about the management of academics and how the often economic rewards of fevered publishing affects the academic disciplines.
This disaster isn’t American, or even of the West. This fascinating WaPo article discusses management, mis- or otherwise, of academics in Russia:
Eight years ago, President Vladimir Putin decreed that Russia must become a leading scientific power. That meant at least five top-100 Russian universities by 2020, and a dramatic increase in the number of global citations of Russian scientific papers.
Now a group at the center of Putin’s aspirations, the Russian Academy of Sciences, has dropped a bombshell into the plans. A commission set up by the academy has led to the retraction of at least 869 Russian scientific articles, mainly for plagiarism. …
What went wrong? Many scientists blame Putin’s 2012 order, which provided greater funding but also led to pressure on scientists to churn out multiple papers a year regardless of quality, amid heavy teaching loads. …
“You have got this Potemkin village where universities try to report as many papers as possible, but nobody really reads those papers,” said Anna Kuleshova, ethics council chairwoman at the Russian Association of Scientific Editors and Publishers, the country’s largest scientific publishing organization.
The problem goes much deeper, according to scientists working to rescue Russia’s declining international research reputation. Dozens of university rectors have defended or supervised dubious degrees and papers involving plagiarism and falsified data, they claim.
Just the discipline of determining how the use of various carrots and sticks affects the behavior of academics, wannabes, and con-men could make for a fascinating study. And while Western problems usually revolve directly around economics, Russia is following in the steps of its predecessor state, the Soviet Union, in making the mistake of making politics the hook on which they hang themselves, which in the previous case is best known as Lysenkoism.
Make no mistake, the mud-spattered academics are still motivated by economics, aka survival, but the actual lever is politics, the expression of national pride.
For those who worry the United States has gotten off track with its religious visions and money worship, it may be safe to say that Russia is little better in the management of its society.
