"Involvement of the University Ethics Commissions regarding the existence of plagiarism from different perspectives: MEC Order no. 5229/2020 and ME Order no. 5255/2021"

Abstract

The preoccupation of the Romanian Ministry of Education regarding ethics and integrity in higher education began with the highest level of studies, the doctoral studies. In time, the standards and implementation of anti-plagiarism mechanisms were also adapted to the masters and bachelors works, in parallel with their introduction as a compulsory discipline in the university curriculum as „Ethics and Integrity”. The first measures were adopted in 2016 were to verify and sanction plagiarism in Doctoral Theses on the occasion of their completion and public defense. In 2021, based on the rules established in 2016, the central authorities retroactively extend this rule for all doctoral theses defended since 1990, through the mechanism of identification and verification of similarities between theses. At the same time there was the development of the platform with public access to all doctoral theses, a platform supported by the Portal Integrated Educational Register (https://rei.gov.ro), motivated by the need to increase transparency in the field of academic integrity. These administrative measures, although being applied retroactively and anachronic to the previous procedures, try to bring equity in the verification of doctoral theses from the perspective of similarities.