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The document was drafted by the Ministry of Education and Science in accordance with Article 4, Clause 21 of the Federal Law on Science and the Government Policy on Research and Technology.
Federal Law No. 185-FZ of July 2, 2013, Amending Certain Legislative Acts and Invalidating Certain Legislative Acts (Individual Provisions of Legislative Acts) of the Russian Federation Following the Adoption of the Federal Law on Education, amends the provisions of the Federal Law on Science and the Government Policy on Research and Technology related to state scientific accreditation.
The resolution approves the Regulations on the Awarding of Academic Degrees, which was drafted in accordance with Government Instructions No. DM-P8-2007 of March 30, 2013 following a meeting on improving the system of training and accreditation of science and academic research employees held on March 26, 2013.
The Regulations includes several new elements, such as:
- basic procedures for the submission and defence of dissertations for academic degrees, the procedure for the termination or restoration of academic degrees and for consideration of appeals, as well as the procedure for the consideration of doctoral dissertations and accreditation issues by the Higher Accreditation Commission of the Ministry of Education and Science (hereinafter referred to as The Commission);
- a provision, according to which dissertations can only be submitted for defence in a specially approved form (the forms of scientific report and monograph have been invalidated);
- introduction of the applicant’s reputational liability for failure to correctly reference sources, individual results or co-authors’ works, as well as for the provision of unreliable information about scientific publications that cite the basic scientific results of the given dissertation;
- a ban on the defence of dissertations by civil (municipal) officials in the event of a conflict of interests that can affect decisions on scientific accreditation or the said officials’ ability to act as official opponents;
- introduction of a procedure for posting information necessary for ensuring compliance with the rules of awarding academic degrees online, including requirements for publishing the full text of the dissertation and the author’s summary, as well as information about the scientific supervisors (consultants), the chair of the dissertation council, the opponents who reviewed the dissertation, the person who approved the conclusions of the organisation where the dissertation was prepared, the person who approved the conclusions of the leading scientific institution in the given field and the leading institution that provided the conclusions;
- the statute of limitations for considering requests to terminate academic degrees for violating the above criteria has been extended from three to ten years.
The Resolution stipulates a transition period for the defence of doctoral dissertations by people holding a bachelor’s degree and for their consideration by the Commission until July 1, 2015. The reason behind this decision is that starting January 1, 2014 only people holding a specialist or a master’s degree can submit dissertations for doctoral degrees.
In view of changes in the procedure for submitting and defending dissertations, the transition period during which the Commission can consider accreditation requests from the people who defended their dissertations before January 1, 2014 has been extended until January 1, 2015.
The Resolution also declares invalid the relevant clauses of Government Resolution No. 74 of January 30, 2002, On Approving the Single Register of Academic Degrees and Academic Ranks and the Provision for Awarding Academic Degrees, as well as other Government resolutions which amended Resolution No. 74.
In accordance with Federal Law No. 185-FZ of July 2, 2013, this Resolution will become effective on January 1, 2014.
The Resolution is aimed at enhancing the quality of the system of government accreditation, including through the introduction of mechanisms of reputational liability of the applicants, members of the dissertation councils, official opponents and leading organisations in the given field for the objectiveness and tenability of their decisions on the dissertations’ compliance with the above criteria, as well as clear regulation of the procedure for submitting and defending dissertations.
This Resolution will be implemented without the allocation of additional funds from the federal budget.