Lithuanian speaker trusts university evaluation of prime minister’s dissertation

Lithuanian parliament speaker Juozas Olekas has stated he trusts the university’s assessment of Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius’s doctoral dissertation, reported LRT.

Olekas emphasised that it is the responsibility of academic institutions to ensure that scholarly work meets the standards required for academic degrees. “It is a matter of academic integrity that the work meets the standards of the degrees awarded,” he told Žinių Radijas.

He noted that ISM University of Management and Economics, where Sinkevičius defended his dissertation in 2015, must verify the quality of its academic work. “People pay significant sums to study there, and we hear from the leadership that it is a high-quality institution. Therefore, it must check and evaluate the work,” Olekas said.

He added that academic work should be evaluated by university-appointed commissions, not by those outside the academic community. “You write the work, submit it, and the university forms a commission that gives its conclusion. I don’t think anyone influenced the commission’s work in this case,” Olekas said.

Public questions have recently emerged about Sinkevičius’s dissertation, including its submission to Lithuania’s electronic theses and dissertations system (eLABa) and possible plagiarism. The prime minister has stated he wrote the work himself and signed an agreement for its publication. ISM University confirmed the dissertation was uploaded to eLABa on July 16.