Guidelines to recognise fake scientific events
ENThe Research Council of Lithuania carries out the evaluation of the activities of higher education institutions, develops and implements measures for financing travelling to research dissemination events, evaluates and allocates funding for research proposals and otherwise contributes to the evaluation and assurance of research quality. Meanwhile, higher education institutions accomplish assessments and calls for various academic positions, evaluate the researcher’s or candidate’s publications and presentations at scientific events. Hence, for researchers, who are seeking scientific recognition and academic career, publications become an important asset. More importantly, conference presentations are taken equally into account. Therefore, it is crucial to carefully choose scientific events as participation in fake scientific events can undermine a researcher’s reputation and career, as publishing in ‘predatory’ publishing journals do so. Members of the academic community take a negative view towards such scientific events and identify them as a kind of threat to the quality of science, impeding further research and development (Beall, 2015). Given the importance of the issue described and responding to the growing concern of the international academic community regarding the uncertainty of scientific events and their compliance with quality standards, the Office of the Ombudsperson for Academic Ethics and Procedures (Office) in Lithuania has developed guidelines for Lithuanian academia (Guidelines) to help them to identify fake scientific events. Keywords: academic community; fake scientific events; guidelines; recommendations.
