In the footsteps...

Comment by Dmitry Livanov, Rector of the State Technological University "Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys", Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Professor, Deputy. Chairman of the Higher Attestation Commission:

— Have you read the story of “The Uprooter”?

— Yes.

— What do you think should be the mechanism for the Higher Attestation Commission to respond to pseudoscientific publications and journals?

— New rules for creating a list of scientific publications have now been published on the Higher Attestation Commission website. However, I believe that the main responsibility for the quality of scientific articles lies with the editors of journals, and the main responsibility for the quality of dissertations lies with dissertation councils. The Higher Attestation Commission is absolutely unable to read all publications in all journals. The Higher Attestation Commission can only demand maximum information openness from the editorial offices of scientific journals, so that all publications are publicly available on the Internet so that the scientific community is familiar with them.

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Let us recall that on December 17, 2007, a meeting of the plenum of the Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Education and Science was held in Moscow, at which D. Livanov outlined measures to improve the efficiency of using the List of scientific publications recommended by the Higher Attestation Commission for publishing the results of dissertations (about which during his The report was also mentioned by the head of the Higher Attestation Commission Mikhail Kirpichnikov). These ideas are the result of the work of the Higher Attestation Commission, chaired by Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Shuvalov.

Livanov noted that “Russian science should be integrated into the world as closely as possible. Knowledge belongs to all humanity, and just as there is no national multiplication table, so all other knowledge is also the property of all people, especially in the field of fundamental research.” The devaluation of academic degrees and the provincialization of science are largely generated by the commercialization of the certification system. “The inclusion of a journal in the List or the creation of a new dissertation council does not always follow clear, transparent principles. The main goal of the commission’s work is to make the process of including a journal in the List transparent and understandable. The ultimate goal is to include in this list only those journals that are recognized by the world community as authoritative scientific publications.” The criteria for a journal to be included in the HAC list must be fully formalized, verifiable, and transparent. All publications have a uniform approach; there should be no individual exceptions.

According to the deputy chairman of the Higher Attestation Commission, the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) will play an increasingly important role in the field of social sciences and humanities, which in the coming years will make it possible to form a domestic system of impact factors. In the technical sciences, the role of patents will be strengthened, and in the field of physical, mathematical and natural sciences, by 2010, only those publications that will be included in the Web of Science will be included in the list of the Higher Attestation Commission. “This system is quite simple, we do not exclude that at the first stage the number of journals in the List will even increase, there is nothing wrong with that, but it is important that Russian scientific journals use in their work the standards that exist for authoritative scientific journals around the world "

Natalia Demina based on materials from Polit.ru