Foreword - Overview of the Workshop Held and Establishing of the Macedonian Association of Medical Editors, in Skopje, on April 25, 2014

Abstract

In the last 20 years high schooling/university level education in the Republic of Macedonia has been enriched with a number of additional public and private universities, faculties and high schools established in all areas of education including biomedical sciences. Many young people got opportunity to study and continue with further postgraduate training including specializations and sub-specializations, masters/MS and doctorates/PhD studies. The expansion of higher education and in particular the introduction of the European Credit Transfer System in R. Macedonia, about 10 years ago, contributed to the decline of the criteria in the study, with increased easier passing from one academic year to another and easier way of obtaining higher education diplomas, even the so-called "buying diplomas", especially at some private universities. There were registered numerous frauds in passing written tests of colloquia and exams, plagiarism and other forms of unethical conduct in drafting seminar papers, master thesis and doctoral dissertations, both in undergraduate and postgraduate education that the academic community could not accept and could not tolerate. On the other hand, the introduction of additional and higher criteria in the academic community for career development and election into educational and scientific titles, as well as for granting various other recognitions and awards, according to the research activities and the number of published papers in scientific journals, contributed to an expansion of the publishing activity in biomedicine, with an increasing number of scientific journals in R. Macedonia and the number of papers published in them, in most cases with a previous peer review. But, the increased quantity has not always been matched by increased quality in publishing. The reasons for this are related to lack of information and education of the scientific community, especially of the young scientists about the ethical principles in research and publishing, and a number of attempts of many experts for increasing their scientific productivity by unethical behavior and fraud in research and publishing their results in scientific journals. The measures undertaken by the Ministry of Education and Science, the editors of scientific journals and other relevant factors are mainly aimed at detecting fraud and plagiarism. Little attention has been paid to the additional structured education to raise the ethical standards and awareness about the principles of scientific communication and ethical approach to research and publishing of results in scientific journals. After prolonged observations of adverse trends and developments in the field of scientific publishing in biomedicine, the guest editors of this thematic issue of the Journal "Prilozi/ Contributions", along with members of the Department of Medicine and other members of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MASA), in 2013, undertook the initiative to organize a workshop for editors of scientific journals, on research and publishing integrity and misconduct in Skopje. The first meeting of the Initiative Board was held on 01.11.2013, in MASA, Skopje. It was announced that two internationally-renowned experts in the field expressed willingness to participate as presenters at the workshop: Prof. Dr. Ana Marusic, Medical Faculty, University of Split, Chief co-editor of the Journal of Global Health (www.jogh.org); and Prof. Elizabeth Wager, Managing Director of Sideview-International Publications Consultancy (www.lizwager.com), Brucks, United Kingdom. The initiative and proposal for organizing Workshop was supported by the Department of Medicine and Presidency of MASA. DOI: