In this interview, Iryna Izarova sits down with Tetiana Yaroshenko, Deputy Director for Research and International Affairs at the State Scientific and Technical Library of Ukraine, and Denys Kurbatov, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, to discuss the ongoing reform of research assessment in Ukraine, the updated list of Ukrainian scholarly journals, and the steps being taken to integrate Ukrainian science into the European Research Area despite the challenges of the ongoing war.

Iryna Izarova: Welcome to you both. The topic of research integrity is more pressing than ever, especially in light of recent international scrutiny. A recent Nature investigation exposed a massive paper-mill network, dubbed “Tanu.pro,” uncovered by research-integrity sleuth Anna Abalkina and Springer Nature’s Svetlana Kleiner. The investigation traced highly suspicious email domains used in manuscript submissions to a founder of a Kyiv-based company called Scientific Publications. Although the company cited “commercial secrets” and denied the allegations, this operation allegedly compromised around 1,500 research articles across various countries. This casts a harsh spotlight on the darker side of academic publishing. How is Ukraine responding to the threat of predatory publishing and paper mills, especially during such a vulnerable time for our academic community?

Denys Kurbatov: Thank you, Iryna. The Nature report was indeed a stark wake-up call, though it primarily validates the urgent need for the reforms we are already implementing. While that specific network involved authors from several countries, the implication of a Kyiv-based entity is a matter we take extremely seriously. Predatory publishing drains vital resources and damages reputations.

At the Ministry, we are tackling this at the root by overhauling the state evaluation of professional scholarly journals. Our dedicated working group didn’t just tweak the existing rules; they developed a truly comprehensive list of criteria. We recognized that relying solely on quantitative metrics was a flawed approach. Instead, the most important shift is our adoption of a complex mix that heavily weighs qualitative criteria. These new benchmarks are based directly on the best practices established by globally recognized organizations such as the Committee on Publication Ethics, the World Association of Medical Editors, the European Association of Science Editors, and the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association. Furthermore, we are aligning our assessment frameworks with DORA standards and incorporating the rigorous inclusion criteria of the Directory of Open Access Journals.

The updated criteria for our Category B list now strictly mandate adherence to these international ethical standards, alongside indexing in databases such as Scopus or Web of Science for Category A, and require transparent editorial policies and publication ethics rules, as well as robust peer-review protocols for Category B.

Interestingly, this intensive work brought about a highly unexpected but wonderful result. As editorial boards reformed their policies to meet these rigorous new standards, we saw a massive shift: most of our Ukrainian journals have now moved to a Diamond Open Access model. This means no fees for authors to publish and no paywalls for readers, which provides an incredible opportunity for Ukrainian researchers to share their work globally without financial barriers. To make this progress fully transparent, the Ministry of Education and Science recently launched an open, interactive Dashboard of Scientific Journals of Ukraine. It clearly visualizes our current publishing landscape, demonstrating that 684 out of 1,302 registered journals now operate under this Diamond OA model.

By aggressively auditing our lists, promoting these high-quality Diamond Open Access venues, and stripping state recognition from low-quality or predatory publishers, we are fundamentally removing the career incentives for scholars to turn to paper mills in the first place. To be absolutely clear: we are actively getting rid of actors who massively publish compromised papers. Any journal or publisher found churning out thousands of papers in a single month without objective evidence of genuine peer review and real editorial services is being swiftly purged from our state registers.

Iryna Izarova: It is also encouraging to note that the Ministry has won several lawsuits, including cases at the Supreme Court, that were initiated by predatory organizations. This demonstrates a profound understanding and a strong national consensus regarding the critical importance of this work. Tetiana, from the perspective of the State Scientific and Technical Library, how do we support our scholars so they are equipped to recognize and avoid these deceptive practices? The systemic and psychological pressures to publish are immense right now.

Tetiana Yaroshenko: You’re absolutely right about the pressure — and it isn’t only systemic, it’s deeply psychological. Many researchers live under “publish or perish,” and predatory publishers have built an entire business model around exploiting that anxiety. So our response can’t be a single measure; it has to combine education, media literacy, and modern infrastructure. The first line of defense is awareness. Over the past two years, we have trained thousands of researchers and librarians across Ukraine to recognize predatory practices and to navigate publication ethics with confidence. We teach them to look past the flattery of unsolicited invitations, to check for hidden or undisclosed fees, to verify a journal’s editorial board and indexing, and to confirm whether its metrics are genuine rather than fabricated. We deliberately rely on internationally recognized tools — Think. Check. Submit., the DOAJ, COPE guidance — so that a scholar facing a tempting offer has a clear, practical way to evaluate it before submitting. But education alone places the entire burden on the individual. That is why we are also building the infrastructure that makes the right choice the default one. A significant step forward in our national Open Science ecosystem is a dedicated module for scholarly journals within the Ukrainian National Research Information System (URIS). It creates a seamless exchange of information among the Library, the Ministry, and the journals’ own editorial boards. The module lets us systematically collect detailed, up-to-date data on each journal’s policies, editorial staff, and peer-review processes. Just as importantly, it allows us to monitor publishing activity continuously and to verify ongoing compliance with our standards — so transparency is built into the system rather than checked after the fact.

Alongside URIS, we offer researchers a tool they can use directly, on their own, before they ever submit a manuscript: OUCI, the Open Ukrainian Scientific Content Initiative (ouci.dntb.gov.ua). It is an open search engine and citation database built on Crossref’s Cited-by service and the Initiative for Open Citations, and it currently covers close to two thousand Ukrainian journals from nearly 400 publishers, set against some 182 million publications worldwide. For a scholar weighing where to publish, OUCI turns vetting a journal into a matter of evidence rather than guesswork. You can see how fully a journal is actually represented in the scholarly communication system, examine its real citation data and indicators such as the h-index and i10-index, and check whether it is genuinely indexed in Scopus or Web of Science — instead of taking a publisher’s flattering claims at face value. And because the whole system rewards open, complete, DOI-linked metadata, the journals that operate in the shadows tend to stand out by their absence or by the poor quality of their records. If a researcher does encounter dubious or predatory metadata, they can simply filter it out, for instance by ISSN. Crucially, OUCI also disciplines the journals themselves: editors can use it to verify that their metadata has been submitted correctly and completely to Crossref, which means transparency is rewarded with visibility. That is the same philosophy behind everything we do here — make the open, honest path the one that also delivers the most exposure and impact. 

Finally, we pair this monitoring with the active promotion of institutional repositories and legitimate Open Access platforms. Our goal is simple but, I think, powerful: to make doing the right thing the easier thing. When a researcher has a free, reputable, well-supported place to publish and share their work, the predatory option loses most of its appeal.

Iryna Izarova: An important innovation in the renewal of the list of accredited academic journals was the verification of editorial board membership through the URIS system. All declared editorial board members, including international scholars, were required to complete an identification procedure as part of the journal’s application process. This measure helped confirm the actual involvement of scholars in journal activities and prevented practices such as listing fictitious or non-participating editorial board members, which are often associated with predatory publishing. Denys, looking at the numbers and the scale of the problem, what are the broader implications of these enforcement efforts? How does cleaning up our academic publishing landscape directly aid our integration into the European Research Area?

Denys Kurbatov: It is foundational to our integration. The ERA operates on a currency of trust and verifiable scientific excellence. When we proactively weed out bad actors — and align our national assessment with European standards like the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment — we signal that Ukrainian science is a reliable partner. It proves that despite the war, we uphold the highest standards of integrity and therefore deserve robust international support, active participation, and direct funding for our research.

Consider the data: we currently have hundreds of legitimate Ukrainian journals that are putting in the rigorous work to meet the stringent criteria of international databases. By isolating the predatory ones, we protect the reputation of these honest editorial boards and the thousands of hardworking academics they publish. This uncompromising stance is exactly what convinces international funders, universities, and institutions to trust our research and engage in joint grants with Ukrainian scientists.

Iryna Izarova: To conclude, what message do you both have for the international academic community regarding Ukraine’s ongoing fight against predatory publishing?

Tetiana Yaroshenko: My message is that this must be a collaborative global effort. Predatory networks do not respect borders, as the Nature article clearly showed. We urge the international community to continue sharing intelligence, databases, and best practices with us. Support our legitimate, high-quality Open Access journals, and help us foster an academic culture where genuine research impact is valued over mere publication counts.

Denys Kurbatov: I echo that completely. Despite the devastation of the war, our commitment to academic integrity is unwavering. We are taking decisive, structural actions against academic fraud. We invite international publishers, indexing services, and policy-makers to stand with us, remain vigilant against these exploitative networks, and support the genuine scientific innovation that Ukraine continues to deliver to the world.

Iryna Izarova: I would like to add a final thought to that: the Ukrainian editorial and publishing community is not only resilient, but highly active and deeply represented within major international organizations. We currently have over 80 dedicated members in the European Association of Science Editors, and more than 500 of our journals are proudly indexed in the DOAJ. Furthermore, we are increasingly engaged with the Committee on Publication Ethics and are actively collaborating across borders to establish international editor certification schemes. We are not just adapting to European standards—we are helping to shape them, championing equitable models like Diamond Open Access.

Now we face the task of evaluating this transition. From a budgetary perspective, this leap was achievable because Ukrainian scholarly publishing has historically been embedded within and subsidized by state universities and research institutes, rather than relying on commercial revenues. Today, these institutions continue to absorb the operational and editorial costs as an integral part of their core academic mission, strategically reallocating resources from traditional print runs to support sustainable digital open infrastructure. Recently, 19 leading Ukrainian titles were granted state support for their operations, but we continue to search for the most sustainable funding models for Diamond Open Access journals. By doing so, we are proving that our scholarly community remains a vibrant, driving force in global science.

Thank you all for your time and your relentless work for Ukrainian research.

Author’s notes: For those who wish to continue this conversation, I warmly invite you to join us at the Frankfurt Book Fair for a special event organized by EASE, titled Academic Publishing in Times of War: Supporting Science Community (stet). The presentation will take place on Friday, 9 October at 11:00 am on the Innovation Stage. We will explore the resilience of the academic publishing ecosystem from three interrelated perspectives: publishing during armed conflict, post-war recovery, and the critical role of international associations. 

AI disclosure: The author used Gemini (Google, September 2026 version) for linguistic editing, translation support, and grammar checking for some parts of this interview post. I am the sole author of the ideas and conclusions expressed; I read, thoroughly verified, and take full ownership of all AI outputs and changes.