About the announced reform of graduate school. His example is for others “Science”: why the most important national project can work in vain

2018 2 interviews were published with the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sergeev, about the imminent reform of graduate school and the introduction of mandatory defense for graduate students. Then we did not comment on the words of the head of the RAS until all the details were clarified. Now, thanks to our sources, we have the opportunity to find out the details and analyze them.

1. Dates for the start and implementation of the reform

In 2017 We have already written about the draft Federal Law “On Scientific, Scientific, Technical and Innovative Activities in the Russian Federation,” which provides for mandatory defense upon completion of graduate school. This project The Federal Law was supposed to be adopted in 2018, but was postponed to 2019. It is the adoption of this Federal Law that will mark the beginning of the reform of graduate school. The head of the Russian Academy of Sciences speaks about it in particular in his interviews. Our sources confirm that defense for graduate students will become mandatory until November-December 2019 at the latest. If the draft Federal Law is adopted before the end of March, then already in September 2019. After this, within 1-2 years you should expect updates to GOSTs relating to graduate schools.

2. Consequences of the introduction of mandatory defense for graduate students.

It is already clear that the introduction of a mandatory defense will bring only a part of graduate students a relatively guaranteed exit to defense. It is worth paying attention to the fact that in his interview the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences speaks specifically about the percentage of graduate students who defended their defenses, and not about the increase in the number of defenses. According to him, the main goal of the reform is to increase the percentage of those who defended themselves by at least 1.25 times, and those who submitted for defense by at least two times by the end of 2024. Which is quite understandable by the fact that an increase in the number of defenses themselves is impossible, primarily due to the expected reduction in the number of postgraduate students against the backdrop of a reduction in the number of postgraduate courses (the presence of postgraduate studies at a university will be conditioned by the presence of a dissertation council, similar to doctoral studies). Also, do not forget about the policy of the Ministry of Education and Science to reduce the number of dissertations. councils up to 1200-1300 at the end of 2019 (as part of optimizing the network of dissertation councils and the transition of a certain number of universities to their own degrees), and tightening the responsibility of the remaining ones (New regulations on the council for the defense of dissertations). Therefore, if now out of 90 thousand graduate students only 12% defend their defense, then after the reform the number of graduate students will decrease significantly, but the percentage of those defending their defense will actually be higher. In this regard, we should also expect a deterioration in the situation of job seekers. First of all, because the percentage of defenses among graduate students can actually be increased only by reducing the percentage of defenses among applicants (which is still extremely low). The ability of councils to allow “outsiders” to participate in the defense will also be noticeably reduced. It is important to understand that dissertation councils are now placed in conditions under which they cannot significantly increase the number of defenses without being suspected of putting defenses on stream. Suspicions that the council has become a “dissertation factory”, as practice shows, leads to its fairly rapid closure. There are exceptions, but they relate mainly to dissertation councils southern regions Russia, whose activities are still viewed rather loyally. This does not guarantee that those who are there will be protected from scandals and reputational costs. When discussing the consequences of introducing mandatory protection for graduate students and applicants, one cannot fail to mention that this will significantly affect the increase in costs. It is obvious that universities will raise the official tuition/attachment fees due to the fact that the number of graduate schools and councils will be noticeably reduced. Regarding free places in graduate schools, then we should expect their reduction. If, of course, they will be available at all to the average graduate student (why - see paragraph 4) With the growth of official ones, unofficial costs will also increase. In conditions significantly limited opportunity defend, as well as increasing the risks for dissertation councils, the applicant will be forced to either pay for assistance in working on the dissertation and defense, or work out the very opportunity to defend. We have been observing this practice for a long time, but in the new conditions it is likely to become even more widespread. All the consequences considered will undoubtedly contribute to growing interest in universities’ own degrees. Which in turn will increase the cost of obtaining university degrees. Especially from among the top five or ten, who are already able to compete to some extent with ordinary degrees. At the same time, you need to understand that the status of your own degrees will still be somewhat lower. The difficulty of obtaining conventional degrees significantly increases their status. To overcome similar situation a complete waiver of government degrees is required. However, this will definitely not happen in the next 5-6 years. The policy of the Ministry of Education and Science over the past 6 years is clearly aimed at reducing the number of citizens with state degrees, but not at completely abandoning degrees.

Important to note: The introduction of mandatory defense will apply only to graduate students who enter graduate school after the entry into force of the new Federal Law. As for graduate students who entered graduate schools before the entry into force of the new Federal Law and applicants, then if theywill not have time to defend their defense before 2020-2021, they will also begin to feel the effect of the postgraduate reform because By this time, GOST will be changed and not only the new Federal Law will influence the activities of graduate schools and dissertation councils.

3. Increasing the duration of postgraduate studies to 5-6 years and reducing the educational load on postgraduate students

According to our sources, we can indeed expect an increase in the duration of postgraduate studies. This will happen as soon as the new GOST, which the head of the RAS speaks about, comes into force. Those. in 2020-2021 First of all, this will concern technical and natural science specialties. For these specialties, the period will most likely be increased to 6 years. The possibility of establishing a minimum five-year training period for other specialties is also currently being considered. The exact list of specialties will become known in 2020. At the same time, it is planned to reduce educational load for graduate students to “increase time for doing science.” However, in fact, this will simply lead to the “spreading out” of the graduate program for an additional 1-2 years. Positive effect Only graduate students who do not want to join the army will benefit from these innovations. For other categories of potential graduate students, this will make graduate school much less attractive and they will look for other ways to obtain an academic degree. First of all, this is a job search. Which, in turn, will become an additional factor in increasing the official cost of applying to universities, as well as unofficial defense costs.

4. The introduction of grants for postgraduate studies and salaries for postgraduate students as an actual refusal of free postgraduate places

According to our data, the introduction of grants for postgraduate studies is practically resolved. In 2020-2021 they will be entered. The purpose of their introduction is to provide the opportunity for free education in graduate schools only to persons developing important for the state and organizations scientific topics. Moreover, capable of bringing training to its logical conclusion. Those. before defending a dissertation. In this review, we will not write about possible abuses in the provision of grants; we will only note that this in itself can become an insurmountable barrier to free education for the majority. In fact, it is proposed (and this is what Sergeev is talking about) that a potential graduate student will have to find a supervisor, decide on a topic and graduate school (and also agree there). Then, together with the manager, submit an application for a grant, receive it, and only after that he will be able to receive the opportunity for free training. If the graduate student ultimately does not defend his defense, he will not fulfill the conditions of the grant. In this case it will rise with high probability question about refund. In other words, getting the opportunity to study in graduate school for free will become either practically impossible for the average person or risky.

Also sooner negative result could bring the introduction of salaries for graduate students. It is not without reason that the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences says that it may make sense to provide the opportunity to open graduate schools (with free places) only to universities that can provide salaries for graduate students at least in the first years of study. How many such universities are there? Most likely very little. This measure is currently being discussed and many recognize it as highly controversial. Most likely it will not be introduced in the coming years. However, even if everything is limited to grants, there will actually be no free places in graduate schools. Education in postgraduate schools will become almost entirely paid.

5. Conclusion.

In conclusion, I would like to note the following: Unfortunately, the reform of graduate school, which will begin this year, will mainly only bring additional difficulties to graduate students and applicants.. As the reform progresses, by 2020-2021. Postgraduate studies will become virtually completely free for applicants. And the cost and duration of training in them will increase. Unofficial costs for graduate students and job seekers will also increase. Once again we would like to emphasize that the main goal of the reform is not to increase the number of protections, but to increase its percentage. The number of graduate students and applicants will only decrease. Therefore, if your goal is to obtain a PhD degree, you should already negotiate with a specific dissertation council and, if possible, speed up the defense. If you have the necessary connections, then you should use them. After the development of new GOSTs and as the deadline for the defense of graduate students from reformed graduate schools approaches, it will become increasingly problematic to defend. Both for graduate students who completed their postgraduate studies according to the old rules, and for applicants. If you are determined to enroll in graduate school, then it makes sense to enroll only after the new Federal Law comes into force. At the same time, you must be prepared to spend at least 5 years on this and incur significant expenses throughout this period. If you have scientific supervisor who can help you get a grant for free training, then in this case you must be absolutely sure that you have necessary forces and time to bring everything to its logical conclusion.

What do I think about the reform of Russian graduate school announced by RAS President Alexander Sergeev. Indeed, it is necessary to reduce the number of non-core lectures and classes. In most cases, such hours are given to someone who has the greatest lobbying power at a particular university. They usually have nothing to do with the scientific activities of graduate students. But the introduction of compulsory writing of a scientific paper based on the results of training raises questions. Previously, Education Minister Olga Vasilyeva even spoke about mandatory protection of these works (it is quite possible that in the end this tougher option will win). In other words, what is the meaning of such obligation? After all, in the past, only those who either did not have time (often did not want, being distracted by more important matters) to do anything, or who themselves assessed the quality of their dissertation extremely low, did not come forward for defense. Why force graduate students and their supervisors to imitate scientific activity, take up time from experts, torment the dissertation council, etc.? It would be much easier to evaluate those whose graduate students successfully defended themselves by the quality of the work they completed, because measuring the success of scientists and universities by the number of defenses has already led to sad consequences for the scientific community, which even the tireless Dissernet cannot cope with.

It is also not entirely clear how graduate students will be forced to submit their work? They cannot fire them from anywhere, or threaten them with expulsion from graduate school, because by refusing to come forward to defend themselves, they themselves are admitting that their choice in favor of graduate school was unsuccessful. Postgraduate Diploma in modern conditions doesn't matter. So what - they will bring censure to work book? Will they post photos of the offenders on the “wall of shame” on the university website? Will they be blacklisted by the Ministry of Education? Will they issue a fine? Will they be forced to compensate the state for the money spent on them? Or will all sanctions affect only scientific leaders? But this is a kind of shifting of responsibility from one to another. Graduate students are not small children to force their supervisors through a whip policy to help their students write more work than formal rules and common sense require.

Increasing the time of study in graduate school from 3 to 6 years also seems to me to be a harmful, archaic proposal. Now that life has accelerated significantly, spending an extra 3 years writing a dissertation is a luxury no one needs. And the dissertations themselves, in my opinion, have long become archaic. Perhaps it is necessary to award academic degrees based on the totality of scientific works and contributions specific person into science. Abolish the division between candidates and doctors of science, and, instead, simply recognize that a person is a qualified scientist in a specific field of knowledge. And then his reputation will depend on how his work will be assessed by various scientific communities and organizations. We have a countless number hierarchical systems and all kinds of fennecs. Complex, branched hierarchies are present in every university, academy, institute, public organization. It’s just that all these titles, orders and honorary awards As a rule, they have no relation.

​Behind the major and formidable events of politics and economics, the upcoming reform is somewhat in the shadows Russian postgraduate school. Not so many people occupy this relatively small part educational sphere- yes, maybe it doesn’t change that much. But there are some nuances here.

Graduate school, in fact, has always been “between education and science.” Between them, it will remain - the only question is “which leg” the emphasis will be stronger. "Reference point" in in this case will be the latest edition federal law on education, which came into force in 2013 and designated graduate school as the third stage higher education.

This entailed a number of measures - first of all, to ensure adequate volume teaching hours and classes. And, I remember, the leadership of many scientific institutes, where there were graduate students and where they were considered primarily as young scientists, it turned out to be both puzzled and worried about what to do now.

And now, it seems, there will be a “tilt in the other direction” with the center of gravity still shifting “to the scientific foot.” This statement was made by the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Sergeev. The statement was very brief - but the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences not only “put forward an initiative”, but promised to resolve the issue in the near future, since everything has already been agreed upon with the new Minister of Science and Higher Education Mikhail Kotyukov.

There are, in fact, four changes: firstly, all graduate students will be required to write scientific work(with which the situation is far from favorable now). Secondly, the volume of training hours for them will be reduced - it has not yet been said how much. “Reduce the volume of pedagogy, not add a huge number of hours of lectures,” Academician Sergeev set the task.

Thirdly, the period of postgraduate study can be extended to five or six years - not for everyone, but for those who really need it to complete their scientific work. And finally, fourthly, graduate students, it seems, will be helped financially. The President of the Russian Academy of Sciences formulated it this way: “For example, it will be possible to give graduate students only to places where the leaders and institutes prove that they can provide normal salaries from the very beginning.”

The latter may have caused excitement among the educated public. Over the post-Soviet years, Russians have already become accustomed to the fact that not only can a postgraduate scholarship not be considered money at all, but they also cannot live on a scientific salary. Now this is not quite the case - but, too, depending on where. The story of the scientists' survival is complex and dramatic.

In Soviet times, a single, purposeful young scientist who did not claim any excesses could live on a postgraduate scholarship (and it was called a scholarship). Some of us, who grew up in intellectual families, remember edifying parental stories about how they had one graduate student at the research institute - a wonderful big-headed guy from poor family, from the outback. And his trousers were torn - and in order not to show them again, he sat constantly in the laboratory and in the library - and in the end he defended himself so brilliantly that he was immediately awarded a doctorate instead of a candidate.

Sometimes this happened. Another thing is that not all graduate students were so fanatically devoted to science - the age of graduate school, “in its essence,” contributed to the accelerated creation of families, and those 70 Brezhnev rubles no longer solved the problem. And after 1991, all these edifications came to an end - the young scientist could not survive in any, even the most torn trousers.

However, seriously, one would expect that rectors and university professors would react negatively to changes in graduate school or, at least, with caution - after all, this means a slight reduction in their “sphere of influence”, a gain for the “competing organization.” While the university community is in no hurry to speak out, some voices are already indicating that the situation is more complicated.

In a conversation with a Rosbalt correspondent, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, an academician, spoke in support of the “scientific shift in graduate school” Russian Academy Education Viktor Bolotov, who has worked as Deputy Minister of Education of the Russian Federation and head of Rosobrnadzor, and Vice-Rector of the Russian Academy national economy and public service Andrey Margolin.

“When the law on education was adopted - when, in fact, graduate school became the third level - there were a lot of disputes even then. Why do this? - said Bolotov. - IN Russian tradition level of education always gives the right to some professional activity. Question: What professional activity does completion of postgraduate study entitle you to?

Supporters latest version the law tried to answer this: they say, it gives the right to teach in higher school. “What, you can’t teach in higher education without completing graduate school? - asked Victor Bolotov. - Half of the current teachers have not completed it, and they teach excellently, especially the practical ones. The decision was made then, but the answer to this question was never given. What benefit graduate students received from the fact that graduate school was turned into the third level of higher education is still unclear.”

Therefore, according to Bolotov, “reversing this decision will not harm anything.” “True, this must be done through the law,” the agency’s interlocutor emphasized. “We need to change the law on education.”

Viktor Bolotov approved the reduction of training sessions, “schoolwork” - “because in graduate school it is necessary scientific literature read, write articles, learn to research.” It is also correct to differentiate the terms of graduate school, because, as I reminded experienced teacher, "V different industries knowledge required different quantities time to write a completed scientific text and, even if defending on articles, to create a result.” Especially in experimental sciences - physics, chemistry, where experiments last for several years, and they also need to be formalized.

The idea that not all institutions can obtain the right to postgraduate studies, but only those that can pay extra to graduate students - of course, not just like that, but for the fact that they participate in the implementation of projects and teaching disciplines related to their scientific activity, also seems correct to the interlocutor.

“HSE research has shown that more than half of graduate students work part-time. This was also in Soviet era. And if part-time work is not related to their scientific activities, then this interferes with scientific work, defense, etc.,” said Viktor Bolotov. “When the former minister Dmitry Livanov was the rector of MISiS, he strictly set the condition that if a professor could not find a job for a graduate student related to his activities and pay decent money for living, then he would not give such a professor graduate students.”

Vice-Rector RANEPA Andrei Margolin also emphasized that “at the epicenter, of course, there should be scientific research, and not these training sessions themselves in large quantities.”

“I, frankly, support this point of view, because I do not think that graduate school as a third form of higher education was the right decision,” Margolin said. - Graduate school is about research, not about educational process. Therefore, it is still much better that graduate students have a lot of time to prepare their dissertation.”

In terms of their own academic studies, according to the vice-rector, graduate students most likely need some additional courses. “For example, writing articles in rating magazines is a special technology,” noted Andrei Margolin. - Working with various databases. Maybe according to the methodology of scientific research as such.”

To answer the natural question in this case - why then, not so long ago, was such a wording of the law adopted? - the answers also sounded natural for our country. “There is a principle of uncontrollability of the past,” Margolin noted. “This means that at the time the law was adjusted, a consensus emerged - supporters of graduate school as the third stage of higher education were in the majority.” Victor

Bolotov in this regard quoted famous phrase State Duma deputy Oleg Smolin: “The majority voted without regaining consciousness.”

Leonid Smirnov

Why we should expect that the quality of postgraduate dissertations will soon decline, how the philosophical understanding of the world is changing among postgraduate students, how postgraduate study is similar to the death penalty and to Cuban vintage cars, the site was told by scientists and teachers who learned that defending dissertations at the end of graduate school will become mandatory.

The other day, Minister of Education and Science Olga Vasilyeva said that now any postgraduate course will necessarily end with the defense of a dissertation. The corresponding provision, according to the minister, and in the near future the document will be published for discussion on the legal information portal.

“I am convinced that graduate school ends with a dissertation; if you cannot defend yourself, then you cannot be a scientist,” the minister said at a meeting with young researchers at the Far Eastern Federal University.

After it was adopted in 2013 new law about education, graduate school began to be considered as the third stage of education, and not as the beginning of scientific work. Both scientists and ministerial officials are confident that Vasilyeva’s predecessors were in a hurry with the reform, and that graduate school needs to return its scientific status. They discussed this issue in detail at a joint meeting of the council. Russian Union rectors and the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Moscow State University at the end of June. Then the acting president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Valery Kozlov, carefully called the reform of graduate school hasty and proposed returning specifically to scientific graduate school. Minister Vasilyeva supported this idea and promised to do it, among other things.

It is still unknown when defending a dissertation will become mandatory for graduate students, Deputy Minister of Education and Science Grigory Trubnikov told the site. “We definitely want to discuss this at the Science Council under the Ministry, with the Russian Academy of Sciences, with the Association of Rectors and with the Union of Rectors. This is a complex issue, and the goal here is not to reform this matter as quickly as possible. We will calmly discuss everything and evolutionary way Let's come to research graduate school. When this will happen depends primarily not on the ministry, but on the university and the scientific and academic community,” Trubnikov emphasized.

Is protection really necessary?

The introduction of mandatory defenses is unlikely to improve the quality of dissertations, says Konstantin Severinov, head of Skoltech’s graduate program in the Life Sciences area.

This initiative is harmful and stupid. It will lead to a deterioration in the level of dissertations, since both the supervisors of graduate students and the graduate students themselves will be forced to do hackwork in order to fulfill the requirements of the mandatory defense at the end of graduate school.

Konstantin Severinov

Professor at Skoltech and Rutgers University

“The leadership of the ministry should be concerned about the development of measures to improve the quality of education and science in our country, and not about lectures and the desire to achieve meaningless indicators that will allow them to report success “on paper”, worsening the situation in reality,” Severinov believes.

Postgraduate studies should be aimed at defending dissertations, but at the same time it is necessary to make the defense deadlines more flexible, notes Alexey Khokhlov, project director at Moscow State University. “An organization cannot be required to defend a dissertation exactly on the deadline for completing graduate school, as this will lead to a further decline in the quality of defended dissertations. Therefore, this approach is wrong when it is necessary to defend a dissertation on time, otherwise the organization will be punished,” Khokhlov said.

Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, leading researcher at the State Astronomical Institute named after P.K. Sternberg Sergei Popov compared the introduction of mandatory protection with vintage cars in Havana. “In many ways, the system of science in Russia in general and graduate school in particular remind me of these machines. And the minister’s attempts to reform something include repairing such machines. You can discuss what color to paint them, you can rearrange the steering wheel with right side on the left, you can change the upholstery on one seat or on the other (depending on the current concept). But all this has nothing to do with the normal automobile industry or the ability of citizens to buy modern car"- commented Popov.

The ministry’s initiative will neither harm nor benefit, noted philosopher and sociologist Grigory Yudin (Higher School of Economics). “This is a useless and harmless initiative, like most of Vasilyeva’s initiatives. It’s still impossible to force anyone to defend themselves, even if you threaten death penalty", the expert emphasized.

What needs to change in the training of graduate students

Mandatory defense is not the only innovation in graduate school. Changes may also affect postgraduate training programs. The Ministry of Education and Science plans to discuss how to change them with scientists and university teachers. “All the best, of course, will remain. Everything that works, everything that gives effective preparation qualified personnel, of course, all these practices will definitely remain,” Grigory Trubnikov promised.

Nowadays, entrance and candidate exams, mandatory courses and teaching practice raise many questions. In the list of mandatory entrance examinations Many universities include "Philosophy". First-year graduate students take a course in “History and Philosophy of Science” and pass the candidate minimum. However, the quality of philosophical training of graduate students leaves much to be desired. “This exam has always been a mockery of philosophy, it was impossible to prepare for it meaningfully, and the only thing it reliably taught was an aversion to philosophy. Fortunately, some universities, such as the Higher School of Economics, have begun to abolish it as mandatory exam, and so far no one is complaining that the level philosophical understanding world level among graduate students has decreased,” said Grigory Yudin.

It is possible to introduce subjects that are more relevant for graduate students into the program of compulsory courses, a university professor believes North Carolina and Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, Doctor of Chemical Sciences Alexander Kabanov. “Philosophy, depending on the specialty, may be necessary, but not for everyone. For chemists, biotechnologists, pharmacists (areas that I represent well), instead of philosophy, I would introduce some other courses, modern and more useful for the specialty, which university graduates lack. It could be statistical methods, which, according to my old ideas, are not taught very well, or computer science, or a course focused on the relationship between various disciplines, with the goal of preparing specialists for interdisciplinary, “convergent” research in the future,” says Kabanov.

Kabanov added that instead of philosophy, attention in the training of graduate students should be paid to foreign language. “Success in philosophy, of course, does not reflect the ability of applicants for creative scientific work. What is more important is the ability to speak well and express one’s thoughts coherently, including in English,” he noted. Konstantin Severinov shares the same opinion.

The level of English proficiency of the vast majority of graduates of Russian postgraduate schools, to put it mildly, is not high, and those who know the language did not learn it thanks to official occupations in graduate school.

Konstantin Severinov

Professor at Skoltech and Rutgers University

In addition to the philosophy and quality of teaching English language, it also raises questions about what graduate students are required to teach. “Pedagogical practice is not mandatory, but possible,” says Alexander Kabanov. - For money and voluntarily. So that willing graduate students are paid for limited quantity teaching hours."

According to Konstantin Severinov, pedagogical practice, on the contrary, should become important element preparation of candidates of sciences. “Another question is what to organize correctly teaching practice difficult, because it shouldn’t be about washing test tubes or switching slides for the professor. A person with a PhD should in principle be able to give a professional lecture at university level in his area of ​​specialization. It would be great if preparing and delivering a few lectures were part of graduate school. The same goes for managing graduate students. The best way To understand something yourself means to explain it to another,” the scientist believes.

Philosophy and pedagogical practice, according to Sergei Popov, can hardly be considered a problem of Russian graduate school. He believes that in graduate school (mainly humanitarian areas) often go to people who do not plan to build an academic career and engage in scientific research. Moreover, it does not work in Russia " normal system organization of science" and there is no request for graduate students. “This is already evident from the absence of, say, any noticeable number of Chinese-Indian postdocs in Russia. This is a good indicator,” explains Popov.

It is unlikely that reforming graduate school in the scientific direction will change anything, the expert believes. “In the short term, this will lead to simply nothing changing. They will scold the managers for not providing a sufficient number of protections, but the managers are already accustomed to being scolded for failure to fulfill some impossible demands like the so-called " May decrees President." Or there will be a stream of very weak protections," Popov complains.

Konstantin Severinov also agrees with him. “The ‘candidates’ baked under the new rules will in the future occupy various leadership positions in the higher education system and in science, so the damage from the proposed measures, if they are adopted, will be long-term and will outlive the current minister,” agreed Konstantin Severinov.

Reform of postgraduate education (as well as the award system academic degrees), perhaps, will give greater autonomy to universities. "Generally latest reform system of certification of scientific personnel shows that we are gradually coming to the conclusion that every university can have own ideas about how he wants to train graduate students, what to ask of them and what exams to take,” comments Grigory Yudin.

According to Alexey Khokhlov, it is necessary to monitor how effective graduate school is in a particular organization. “If it is clear that from year to year graduate students, after studying for three or four years, leave without any protection, do not have any publications and go to work in a place not related to science, this is bad. If they are published regularly throughout the entire period of graduate school, defended, not necessarily on time, but within one, maximum two years after graduation, and after that they use their knowledge and work in their specialty, this is good,” Khokhlov sums up.

In particular, training will be extended and time for scientific work will increase. It’s not easy to be a graduate student in Russia: you have to spend time on part-time work and not on science. There are those who even go to study abroad. Will reform help?

The head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Sergeev, announced the reform of graduate school. He proposes to extend the studies there to 5-6 years, while reducing the number of lectures and increasing the number of hours for scientific work. Defense of a candidate's dissertation will also become mandatory; now it is optional. Plus, in the first years of graduate school, it would be possible to introduce special measures of financial support for graduate students, the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences believes.

“Humanities” students now study in graduate school for three years, “naturalists” for four. Many nonresidents go to graduate school for the sake of the hostel. Some young people are trying to evade the army - those who have defended their Ph.D. are not conscripted. There are also those who dream of a career as a teacher or scientist - you can’t defend yourself without graduate school candidate's thesis. But it is impossible to live on a graduate student’s stipend - the national average is no more than 10 thousand rubles.

Irina Abankina Director of the Institute for Educational Development, State University Higher School of Economics“Very many universities, if they accept students, do not limit themselves only to scholarships, but also to enrolling part-time internal research assistants, and actually pay remuneration for work in scientific research, in scientific projects."

The previous reform took place two years ago. Postgraduate studies were turned into a continuation of the bachelor's - master's degree system. The number of subjects has increased, because of this, the time to write a candidate’s dissertation has become much less, and it may become mandatory, complains MSU graduate student Maxim. At the same time, you have to earn extra money. He has a job at a museum with a salary of 20 thousand, plus he leads private excursions around Moscow, but this is only during the warm season. Many of his friends make a living by tutoring. About support scientific projects There’s no need to talk, says Maxim:

Maxim graduate student of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University“There is a grant system, but it is extremely difficult to get a grant, and it is a huge responsibility in terms of reporting. After all, already established scientists apply for grants, but this is not so easy for graduate students, only if the supervisor is involved in this. There are more different ones additional items in addition to the main ones, for which minimum candidate exams are taken. You feel a little like a resident of Kafka’s world, who walks somewhere to the castle for a long time, but along the way something distracts him all the time. If they cut that down, that would be great.”

Reducing the number of lectures can harm both students and teachers, believes Ilya Utekhin, professor at the Faculty of Anthropology at the European University, which now exists as research center in St. Petersburg:

Ilya Utekhin Professor, Faculty of Anthropology, European University“If we allow initiatives, when the scientific community itself organizes something new and allows graduate school to be truly educational, then we will indeed overcome the gap in the field of science and in the field of higher and higher education, which is clearly evident now when comparing Russia and developed countries "

Business FM spoke with those who went to graduate school abroad. A graduate of the physics department of Moscow State University, Diana Grishina in 2013 dreamed of connecting her life with Russian science. But with the prospect of receiving approximately six thousand rubles a month in graduate school, Diana understood that she would have to sacrifice science. She started looking online for offers abroad. Her work in the field of creating three-dimensional photonic crystals from silicon interested Dutch scientists. In many European countries A graduate student can live peacefully without a part-time job, continues Diana Grishina:

Diana Grishina postgraduate student, graduate of the physics department of Moscow State University“You are hired as a “young scientist”, you have a contract for four years with a fixed salary, there are no lectures, you only teach students yourself sometimes, but at the end you are expected to write a dissertation. When graduate students are recruited, the group already has funding that it won as a grant, that is, it cannot be that the money has run out, there is nothing more for you to do. There are no wars, which I saw a lot in our faculty. Sometimes it seemed to me that there are a lot of scientists in Russia who are mainly busy not with science, but with finding money for science. It is necessary to submit applications much in advance, even for some small things. I remember in the physics department I kept samples in yogurt boxes because we couldn’t buy sample boxes.”

As for increasing the training period, there are both disadvantages and advantages. Among the disadvantages is the status of “eternal student”. The advantage is that everyone will probably have time to complete their PhD. Now some students do not complete their studies in three or four years.