Translated material
Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University allowed to award academic degrees bypassing the Higher Attestation Commission
The State Duma adopted in the third reading a bill giving Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University the right to award, deprive and restore academic degrees without the participation of the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC). It is reported by "Interfax"
The change will come into effect on September 1, 2016. By September 1, 2017, it is planned to prepare a list of other scientific and educational organizations that will receive the right to independently award degrees.
According to Valery Chereshnev, head of the Duma Committee on Science, the current system, according to which the VAK approves the award of academic degrees, runs counter to international practice. “Russian universities participate in many international rankings, the question was raised about how the certification of scientific personnel is carried out. “Why, they asked, do they not conduct (attestation) themselves, do they not trust? And we have such a system, ” TASS quotes him.
Earlier, First Deputy Minister of Education and Science Natalya Tretyak explained that the role of the Higher Attestation Commission continues to be preserved in relation to all other dissertation councils, which number 1896. It is assumed that under the new legislation, the right to independently approve degrees will be given to two leading classical universities and at the second stage of the order 30-40 leading scientific and educational organizations, she explained.
- According to the current rules, the decision of the dissertation council to award the degree of candidate and doctor of science after the defense is approved by the expert council of the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC) under the Ministry of Education and Science. HAC also has the right to withdraw degrees.
- In November 2015, participants in the Dissernet project, dedicated to the search for incorrect borrowings in dissertations, for the first time achieved the deprivation of the degree of a State Duma deputy - the Higher Attestation Commission deprived Rishat Abubakirov, a member of the United Russia faction, of the Doctor of Economics degree. Dissernet found incorrect borrowings in the dissertations of 49 State Duma deputies.