Ahead of the rest: how the system of scientific certification is profaned in Russia

Sergey Baimukhametov

Members of the 1st of July Club, which unites 120 academicians and corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, issued a statement stating, in part:

"The abolition of normal scientific attestation is an obvious priority for the 'reformers' who are consistently destroying domestic science," the statement said. - At the moment, the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC) has been removed from the actual leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences and transferred from scientists to career bureaucrats. At the same time, an alternative system of non-VAK academic councils was created, which are generally not controlled by the scientific community and are exempt from national criteria for quality and standardization ... Apparently, it is the lack of basic education among many officials that plays an important role..."

Other scientists joined the opinion of members of the July 1st Club, as well as a completely official organization - the Department of Mathematical Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which sent a letter to the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences. We are talking about amendments to the law on science and state science and technology policy, which came into force in October 2022. In short, now more than 100 (one hundred) “scientific organizations that are national research centers or have the status of a state scientific center, as well as scientific organizations and educational organizations of higher education that have achieved high results in scientific and (or ) scientific and technical activities, have authority in matters of training scientific and scientific-pedagogical personnel of the highest qualification”.

As academician-mathematician Boris Kashin gloomily mocked: "Go and prove which of them has no authority".

And another academician, physicist Alexei Khokhlov , believes that the law was adopted without consultation at all, without taking into account the opinions of scientists: “These amendments passed quickly and imperceptibly. In any case, I do not know that they were sent to the Russian Academy of Sciences. Meanwhile, the position of the Russian Academy of Sciences on this issue is known. Five years ago, the Decree of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences No. 187 dated 11/14/2017 stated that the expansion of the circle of organizations with the right to independently award scientific degrees “can lead to a sharp increase in falsified dissertations, the devaluation of all scientific degrees, the destruction of the system of attestation of scientific personnel built over decades".

Well, it's been destroyed for a long time. This battle of scientists with bureaucracy and corruption is almost 30 years old. It can be considered that with the adoption of the new law, it is completely lost. In Soviet times, only the Higher Attestation Commission had the right to approve academic degrees. With the advent of "democracy" strict criteria began to blur. Officials and politicians desired to become "scientists".

Ivan Rybkin, a graduate of the Agricultural Institute, took up the post of Chairman of the State Duma in 1994, and in 1995 immediately became a doctor of political sciences.

Chairman of the LDPR Vladimir Zhirinovsky (now deceased) in 1998 defended his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

The famous heavyweight wrestler Alexander Karelin, having received the rank of colonel of the tax police in 1995, became a candidate in 1998, and in 2002, already a State Duma deputy, he became a doctor of pedagogical sciences.

Lyubov Sliska, in 2000, having taken the post of Deputy Chairman of the State Duma, in 2001 became a candidate of historical sciences.

Boris Gryzlov, having taken the post of Minister of Internal Affairs in March 2001, became a candidate of political sciences in May.

And why is the province "worse"? In 2004, a popular newspaper published an interview with the Deputy Prime Minister of one of the autonomous republics:

- What's your education?

- Higher legal. I'm finishing. I pass exams.

- What kind?

- How is it - what? Exams and all.

- What is the name of the institute you are graduating from?

- Branch of the Moscow Institute of Business. Legal, that is.

- What is your specialization?

- I'm a lawyer.

- A degree in what law? Criminal? Civil?

- Forgot. I wrote down the thread but forgot. There are a lot of events right now...

Two years later, he became prime minister and defended his dissertation for the degree of candidate of economic sciences.

Further more. In 2010, the authorities of the Ulyanovsk region ordered the local officials to defend dissertations by 2014 and acquire academic degrees. Polls?

And Moscow, of course, did not lag behind. In 2013, a commission from the Ministry of Education and Science reviewed 19 doctoral and 6 Ph. .d.

The Higher Attestation Commission (HAC) in the USSR was a separate structure under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. And it remained so in the Russian Federation - until 1998. Then it was subordinated to the Ministry of Education and Science.

From 2016 to 2020, 29 organizations received the right to independently (outside the HAC) award of academic degrees.

And now their number is expanding to 100 (one hundred) or more.

With the victory of "capitalism" in Russia, a degree for businessmen and politicians became something like a "crimson jacket" for "brothers" in the 1990s. I mention "Brothers" not by chance. More than twenty years ago, a fashion arose in the criminal world - to acquire academic degrees. But the fashion broke out - and died away. Apparently, the criminals admitted that all this, in their language, is bullshit. No honour.

In general, if we look at many other spheres of Russian life, then science is no exception. When the last of the Mohicans leave, there will even be no one to protest against profanity - and we will become a country of continuous candidates and doctors of sciences. The first in the world in terms of the number of scientists.