OREANDA-NEWS. Transcript of the beginning of the meeting: Dmitry Medvedev: Good afternoon, colleagues. We have met here at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology to discuss a subject that has become rather important today for a number of reasons, though we would have had to talk about it anyway. 

I have talked to postgraduates at various universities in our country about issues such as supporting science and academia, young people in science and academia, and  the subject that has brought us all here today – plagiarism. It is a serious issue today. There are shameful facts regarding the writing and the defence of theses in a number of specialisms. But the most unpleasant thing, in my opinion, is not even the fact that there are some cases of plagiarism, for this phenomenon has always existed, but that it has become widespread. Furthermore the reputation of some research organisations, and even the academic community as a whole, is tainted. When something bad happens, people tend to believe that it is common practice everywhere, and that there are no normal theses, which means that proper science and academia do not exist.

We here understand that this is wrong.