New complaint seeks inquiry into Sinkevičius’s dissertation

Lithuania’s Office of the Academic Ethics and Procedures Ombudsperson has received a new complaint alleging possible academic ethics violations in Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius’s doctoral dissertation, LRT reported. The office is conducting a preliminary assessment after the ISM University of Management and Economics completed its own investigation.

The ombudsperson’s office said on Thursday that it was reviewing the complaint and preparing to decide whether to open an investigation. Ombudsperson Reda Cimmperman said a decision was expected in the coming days, after lawyers assessed the submission.

The complaint asks the office to investigate possible violations in the preparation and defence of Sinkevičius’s 2015 dissertation. It also asks the office to find that plagiarism and scientific dishonesty occurred and, if serious academic ethics violations are established, to require the university to revoke his doctoral degree.

The complainant says the university’s ethics committee recognised plagiarism and a breach of the dissertation’s independence requirements in October, but did not properly assess many of the textual similarities. According to the complaint, a Turnitin check found a 20% text overlap, while an independent international expert identified 22 cases of improper use of text, 18 of which were assessed as serious.

On October 30, the university’s ethics committee said it had found five instances of plagiarism and two cases of text overlap involving the use of another person’s text that did not amount to plagiarism. It concluded that Sinkevičius had breached the university’s academic integrity principle and the doctoral regulations’ requirement that a dissertation be independently prepared. The committee gave him six months to correct the identified breaches but did not recommend immediately revoking his degree.

Sinkevičius has acknowledged the breaches identified by the committee and said he would prepare a publicly available addendum correcting the dissertation. The university investigation followed debate over possible plagiarism that began in July. Sinkevičius had previously said he prepared the work ethically and rejected the plagiarism allegations.

The ombudsperson’s office is required to decide whether to open an investigation within three working days of receiving the assignment to review the complaint. If an investigation is opened, a decision is due within 30 days of the complaint’s receipt or the investigation’s start. The period may be extended twice by up to four months if circumstances are complex or further information is needed.