Report for the degree – Newspaper Kommersant No. 186 (7387) dated 07.10.2022

The Ministry of Education and Science wants to exempt graduate students from technical and natural sciences from writing dissertations. Minister Valery Falkov suggested discussing such an experiment yesterday. To get a PhD, it will be enough to defend a report based on previously published scientific articles – at least five. Officials believe that this will encourage graduate students to complete their studies on time.

On Thursday, at a meeting of the committee of advisers of the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC), the head of the Ministry of Education and Science, Valery Falkov, proposed changing the format for defending candidate dissertations. Instead of several hundred pages of text, graduate students will be able to issue a dissertation in the form of a scientific report – a brief summary of the results of their research based on previously published scientific articles. Such a dissertation must be submitted for defense while still studying in graduate school or within one year after its completion.

“The implementation of this innovation is advisable to start with the field of technical, physical, mathematical and other natural sciences. It is in these areas that there is significant research that takes time, and graduate students do not always have time to complete the text of the dissertation and the necessary documents on time,” the minister said. The reference materials submitted for the meeting speak of “technical, physical and mathematical, chemical, biological, geological, mineralogical, geographical branches of science and architecture.” According to Mr. Falkov, now the Higher Attestation Commission will have to determine which scientific specialties this initiative can be extended to.

According to the plans of officials, the experiment will affect up to 25% of graduate students. The new defense approach will “encourage them to complete their research on time” and “make it possible to reduce the time from completion of research to the completion of a Ph.D. diploma by two to four months.” “Even if 50-100-200 people defend their dissertations in this mode, and this will allow them to quickly reach the forefront of science, they will be more comfortable,” the minister said.

However, for this form of protection, it is proposed to make more stringent requirements. If now graduate students need to publish two scientific articles in publications from the so-called list of VAK, then for defense in the form of a scientific report, at least five articles will have to be published. Moreover, in the best publications that belong to the first or second quartile, or in journals that are indexed by the Russian Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI, compiled by the Russian Academy of Sciences, unites about 800 domestic journals). It will also be possible to publish in publications that are indexed in other international databases – their list will then be determined by the Higher Attestation Commission.

Young scientists will also have the opportunity to defend a “traditional” dissertation, drawn up in the form of a multi-page manuscript. But if the experiment is successful and does not lead to a decrease in the quality of research, then in the future this form of protection may spread to other branches of science, the reference materials say. However, for now, the Ministry of Education and Science suggests that the Higher Attestation Commission only study this possibility – the initiative will be discussed in more detail in December.

VAK Chairman Vladimir Filippov told Kommersant that a similar format has been used to defend doctoral dissertations since 2021: “It was like that in Soviet times, and then we restored it. And for candidate candidates there has never been – this will be the first time in the history of the country. According to him, in the humanities “it is important that a graduate student be able to write a text,” while in physics and mathematics, a result published in scientific journals is important. “Science has become more complex, experiments have become longer. And graduate students simply physically do not have time to write the dissertation text on time for its supervisor to read, or to work with opponents,” he says. “Besides, the country needs as many young candidates and doctors as possible, especially in technical sciences.”

Member of the European Academy, full member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Physical Society, professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences Artem Oganov believes that this initiative will affect a small number of graduate students: “Two papers for defense is a real criterion for many young scientists. And not every graduate student can do five articles. Of course, there are isolated cases when ten articles are written. Such graduate students, of course, need to be helped.” He supports the proposal of the Ministry of Education and Science, but believes that it is not suitable for every graduate student: “It makes sense for young scientists to systematize their knowledge about the state of their field – and writing a dissertation usually helps this.”

Academician Valery Rubakov, head of the nuclear physics section of the Russian Academy of Sciences, sees no difficulty for graduate students in writing a dissertation. But he agrees that if there are good results and articles, “there is no need to rewrite them into a thick dissertation work, which is not in demand in all scientific fields.” He notes that the initiative will make life easier for applicants, but it will make it harder for opponents, because they will have to study the articles of dissertators in more detail. Also, Mr. Rubakov supports raising the barrier in terms of the number and quality of publications, so that unscrupulous researchers do not take advantage of the relaxation. “There is also a risk that it will be more difficult to track borrowings, since there will be not a full-fledged text, but short extracts,” he suggests. “If plagiarism is almost never seen in the physical and mathematical sciences, then it occurs in other industries.”

“If a person has published five articles in international journals, then there is no reason to suspect him of plagiarism,” says Mikhail Gelfand, vice president for biomedical research at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, co-founder of the Dissernet project. According to him, this form of protection is already used at Skoltech and the Higher School of Economics. “But it is necessary to discuss the criteria,” he believes. “All the same, publications from the RSCI are inferior in terms of level to the journals of the first and second quartiles. On the other hand, it is now generally unclear what will happen to the publications of scientists in international journals.”

Anna Vasilyeva