Article in defense – Kommersant

The White House is simplifying the defense of Ph.D. dissertations in priority areas of scientific and technological development. Graduate students with at least ten significant scientific publications will be able to defend themselves “by article,” that is, instead of submitting a full manuscript of a scientific work, present a report with a review of their publications. The Ministry of Education and Science expects that this will allow applicants to devote more time to experimental research. The innovation is intended to contribute to Russia’s achievement of technological sovereignty, or at least allow it to “test” an individual defense trajectory for a limited circle of capable young scientific practitioners.

Venera Petrova

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a government decree amending the scientific certification system. Full-time graduate students will be able to defend their PhD thesis in priority scientific fields in a simplified format – in the form of a scientific report containing a review of their previously published works. The applicant must have at least ten scientific publications significant for the development of science, engineering and technology. They must be published in peer-reviewed scientific publications from the list approved by the Ministry of Education and Science on the recommendation of the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC) under the ministry, or in equivalent publications that are taken into account in international databases. In other words, instead of a scientific manuscript with an average length of 150–200 pages, you can submit a report with a review of your articles for defense. This will allow you to concentrate on the research, reducing the stage of preparing its descriptive part. As the Ministry of Education and Science explained to Kommersant, at the first stage the innovation will extend to dissertations in the field of technical, physical, mathematical and other natural sciences. “The areas classified as priorities for scientific and technological development require significant experimental research and take a lot of time in graduate school, so it is not always possible to prepare the text of the dissertation and the necessary accompanying documents on time. The list of relevant scientific specialties will be determined by the Higher Attestation Commission,” the department notes. Note that a similar protection procedure in 2021 was established for doctoral degree applicants in the humanities, economics and social sciences (they must have at least 50 scientific publications). The adopted resolution extends it to doctoral dissertations and other scientific fields. It is clear that the relaxations are being adopted to facilitate the development of priority technologies and to move towards achieving technological sovereignty. “Preparing a dissertation in the form of a report will make it possible to apply an individual defense trajectory… for a limited circle of capable young scientists, and will increase the time for conducting experimental research and testing it, including the publication of scientific works,” explained the Ministry of Education and Science. Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexey Khokhlov in his telegram channel notes that, in his estimation, the norm on awarding academic degrees on the basis of a scientific report / abstract based on the results of previously published outstanding works applies to no more than one percent of all defended dissertations. Deputy Director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics and Technology of National Research Nuclear University MEPhI Georgiy Tikhomirov believes that the innovation will increase the number of protections. However, he notes that an academic degree symbolizes a certain level of expertise, work, and a dissertation is a completed work that demonstrates the author’s personal contribution to research. When defending a collection of publications that have many authors, the applicant’s personal contribution can be completely dissolved – and here dissertation councils should be more careful when assessing it, the expert believes. The idea of ​​protection under articles in itself is quite reasonable, says Mikhail Gelfand, vice president for biomedical research at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) and co-founder of the Dissernet project. “I would welcome the idea of ​​protection for articles in the natural sciences and be more careful about this in the social sciences and humanities,” says the expert. In his opinion, there is a problem with the criteria for evaluating articles. He notes that protection at Skoltech requires the presence of articles in journals of a fairly high level, but the resolution does not stipulate this. In this regard, there is a danger that “people will bake a certain amount of nonsense and defend themselves,” says Mikhail Gelfand. He notes that, on the one hand, in the last ten years there has been a flow of publications in “junk journals”; on the other hand, many Russian journals are concerned about their reputation and are retracting plagiarized articles or expelling people with tarnished reputations from their editorial boards. “If this “cleansing” of journals continues, then maybe the idea of ​​article-by-article protection is not a bad idea. If no one follows the magazines and it is a new market, then this is bad. The question is how it will work, how control will be organized,” says the expert.