Moldova's Mandatory AI-Use Disclosure Framework for University Theses and Coursework

On 24 June 2026, Moldova's Government approved a Framework Regulation on Academic Integrity in Higher Education Institutions, developed by the Ministry of Education and Research (MEC) — the first single, binding national standard covering AI use in academic work alongside traditional fraud categories such as plagiarism, ghostwriting and data fabrication, applying to every higher-education institution in the country.

Require students preparing bachelor's, master's and doctoral theses, and routine assignments, to declare whether they used AI and how, distinguishing permitted 'support' uses (proofreading, formatting) from prohibited uses (AI-generated analysis or conclusions presented as the student's own).

Every university must adopt a published ethics code and establish an ethics commission of at least five members excluding senior administrators, provide periodic fraud-prevention training for faculty, and require all first-year students to pass an integrity test before their first exam session. The measure sits within Moldova's wider AI and digital-governance push tied to its EU-accession process.

Undeclared or substitutive AI use is now an academic-integrity violation nationwide, with tiered sanctions ranging from a mandatory rewrite through grade cancellation to thesis annulment, expulsion, or retroactive revocation of an awarded degree; supervisors who fail to uphold standards face disciplinary sanctions. As a newly approved regulation, no compliance or outcome data has yet been published.

The framework is confirmed by government and independent press sources as already binding across Moldova's higher-education sector, but — as a governance mechanism rather than a measured intervention — its practical effect on academic integrity has not yet been evaluated.