Anna Abalkina

Anna Abalkina is a Russian academic, and is a research fellow at the Free University of Berlin. Abalkina researches scientific corruption and fraud, including 'paper mills' and hijacked journals. She was named by the journal Nature as one of ten people who shaped science in 2024.

Academic career

Abalkina studied international economics at the Financial University in Moscow and then completed a PhD on Russian banks at the University of Perugia.

Abalkina researches malpractice in academic publishing. Whilst working at the Financial University, Abalkina found two of her papers had been plagiarised by a student at another university. After she complained to the journal involved, the author was allowed to insert citations to Abalkina's work, rather than withdrawing the articles.

In 2019, Abalkina identified a 'paper mill' called International Publisher LLC which sells authorships in papers, identifying more than 100 suspicious papers in 68 journals run by established publishers such as Elsevier and Wiley.

Abalkina was named by the journal Nature as one of ten people who shaped science in 2024.

Selected works