LEGAL GAPS IN THE SCIENCE AND EDUCATION REGULATORY FRAMEWORK

We find a contradiction between the articles of the Federal Law on Science and State Scientific and Technical Policy mentioned above and Federal Law No. 273-FZ of December 29, 2012 (as amended on May 25, 2020) on education in the Russian Federation "(RUSSIA, 2012), the essence of the contradiction is as follows:

In the Law “On Science and State Scientific and Technical Policy”, the attribution of university degrees and the achievement of academic ranks are uniquely defined as State’s instruments to assess the scientific qualifications of researchers and persons practicing scientific and technical activities. At the same time, the regulation ruling the attribution of university degrees unambiguously associates the attribution of academic ranks to the existence of scientific and educational papers published by the candidates, and to their high professional level as lecturers.

In this regard, it is fair to assume that the diplomas confirming the achievement of a university degree and the certificates conferring academic ranks are, respectively, documents of scientific and pedagogical qualifications. However, in the Law "On Education in the Russian Federation" such diplomas and certificates do not appear in the list of documents that prove education and scientific qualifications.

If we start from the content of the current legislation, this contradiction creates unjustified obstacles in the teaching activity, especially for the individuals who are holders of a scientific degree and (or) an academic rank in their field, but do not have the required training corresponding to the discipline or the course they teach.

Based on the above, it should be concluded that the next legislative action of the federal legislator, should be the immediate correction of this contradiction, which will completely irradicate the reappearance of controversial situations during the application process of the relevant legal articles and avoid any unjustified obstacles that may encounter the highly qualified scientific and pedagogical staff while conducting educational duties.

DEFICIENCY OF THE REQUIREMENTS IMPOSED ON TEACHERS AND RESEARCHERS

There is an obvious imbalance in the requirements defined by the regulations on the attribution of academic titles to researchers and teachers.

First of all, unlike the previous regulations, the current one does not contain the academic title of “Senior Researcher”, which expresses a certain neglect of the scientific researchers’ merits. The legislator considered that it was possible and sufficient to create only two academic titles - "Associate Professor/Docent" and "Professor", equalizing the titles granted to both scientific researchers and teaching employees. At the same time, the nature and the specifics of the work conducted by scientific organizations carrying out scientific research are not taken into account, which gives priority to the educational activity and a lead for the employees of educational organizations.

In support of the above-mentioned thesis, we examine the requirements imposed on applicants for the title of associate professor, and which are established in the regulation on the attribution of academic titles, according to which the applicant must practice educational activities at a minimum rate of 25% (including under part-time employment conditions) following high-education programs, or complementary professional training programs in the same scientific specialty indicated on the application file. The educational activity takes place within the organization that submitted the file for the academic title attribution.

This standard considerably complicates obtaining an academic title for a large number of researchers, given the existence of scientific organizations which do not carry out educational activities. As a result, researchers are often forced to work part-time at a university, sometimes far from their main place of work, devoting heavy additional energy out of their main activity (research) in order to formally comply with regulations and requirements that cannot be respected within a single organization, which would be much easier in terms of organization, time consumption and moral ethics.

Of course, the defenders of this criticized regulation may note that a researcher can still apply for an academic title at the request of an educational institution in which he works part-time. However, the organizations with which the researcher is only linked by intermittent teaching activities, cannot form a complete and objective judgment of the scientific and educational qualifications of the nominee for the title. It seems that the institution responsible for issuing academic titles should be based on equal consideration and recognition of the scientific and educational merits of applicants within its regulatory and legal framework. At the same time, we believe that the abolition of the academic title in the form of “Senior Researcher” is a legislative error.

We can find the same criticized requirement also imposed on applicants for the title of "professor". As a result of adapting such standards, employees of scientific organizations and teachers of higher educational institutions are deliberately placed under unequal conditions, and the specificity of research activities is not fully detailed and is considered secondary compared to teaching practice. Such an inconsistent regulatory decision creates obstacles for scientists who want to acquire an academic title and minimizes the authority and prestige of scientific research.

It seems that, it would be possible to remove from the regulation the reference to scientific organizations, which execute educational programs of higher education and have state accreditation, and (or) programs of professional development programs or retraining programs on the base of higher education.

However, it seems that such a solution can only be considered for a near future, but at a strategic level, it seems necessary to return to the previous differentiation between academic titles, referring not only to the addition of the title of "senior researcher" to the state certification system, but by supplementing it with a sort of analogue for the title "professor" dedicated for researchers in the form, for example, of the title "chief researcher" or "professor of the RAS" (RAS - Russian Academy of Sciences). The use of the title "professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences" already exists in the activities of the Russian Academy of Sciences. At the same time, attention must be paid to the policies of foreign states, where the proposals outlined in this article have already been implemented. The Code of the Republic of Moldova on Science and Innovation dated July 15, 2004 No. 259 (as amended on September 21, 2017) provides separate academic titles for researchers - “professor-researcher” and “conference researcher” (^{MOLDOVA, 2004}). Such approach is also partially supported in Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian Law dated on 1 July 2014 № 1556-VII (edited by 21 June 2020) “On Higher Education” the scientific title “senior researcher” (Equal to Senior Scientific Employee) is attributed to individuals, who professionally practice scientific or technical activity, while the scientific titles of professor and docent are appointed to individuals, who professionally practice scientific or artistic teaching activity (UKRAINE, 2014).

The title "Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences" was recently implemented by the Decree of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences of September 29, 2015 No. 204 “On the creation of the title of professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences”, the corresponding regulations were approved, specifying the procedure and criteria of attribution of the title (^{RAS, 2015}). At the same time, and as noted by M.I. Kleandrov, the current regulation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, does not mention such a title (^{KLEANDROV, 2019}). Meanwhile, a whole body of RAS professors has been formed, and is organizing general assemblies during which a coordinating council has been elected as the governing body. This coordinating council actively participates in the activities of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

M.I. Kleandrov raises a number of questions analyzing in detail the nature of the academic title of “Professor” and its functional purpose. The mentioned author raises a number of important questions related to this particular academic title - what is the purpose of conferring the title of professor? for what specific achievements could it be attributed? Is it considered a double doctor degree? who can be subject of an evaluation expertise in order to achieve this academic title (^{KLEANDROV, 2019}).

Among the proposals on the modernization of the university titles system in Russia, suggests entrusting to the thesis councils or a union of professors (non-profit association) the right of preliminary scientific examination of application files presented in order to obtain the academic title of “professor” (^{KLEANDROV, 2019}). This innovation deserves special attention. However, in our opinion, it is necessary to define, as a first step, the approach to be followed in the academic titles attributing process, whether centralized (via the system of public education and science administration) or autonomous (via universities or non-profit organizations).

Each of these approaches has advantages and disadvantages. At the present time, a combined approach is applied - universities do assessments and apply for an academic title, subsequently, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation gives a final assessment of the certification case and deliberates a final decision on this matter. All of the above conceptual approaches are used in the worldwide practice of scientific personnel certification.

In this perspective, and in terms of discussion, we propose to consider the introduction of four academic titles in the state certification system:

It should be noted that the point here is not only the name of the academic title, but also the conceptual approach used by the state legal policy in assessing the qualifications of scientists.

It seems that the requirements imposed upon researchers (applicants for academic titles) should be modified on a number of parameters, unlike the case for scientific and educational employees. The merits and qualifications of people who have chosen to work in research as their main activity should be assessed based on the specifics of this line of work, and not by referring it to educational activities, which for many researchers either exist as a secondary activity, or not at all. In this case, and according to the Russian legislation organizing the attribution of academic titles, a researcher does not receive any attention or consideration for his possible successes in scientific activity from the Russian State, which did not provide for such a group of workers special academic titles without reference to educational activity.

INCONSISTENCIES IN THE ASSESSMENT OF REASERCHERS AND TEACHERS’ SIENTIFIC QUALIFICATION

The disproportion of quantitative factors and qualitative characteristics used in the State’s qualification assessment system, is related to a number of significant gaps in the regulatory framework that governs the institute of academic qualifications.

The discussion concerns the conditions to be respected in order to obtain the academic titles of "Professor" and "Associate Professor" as determined by the regulations and according to the number of scientific and educational publications.

Thus, according to the above-mentioned regulation, the applicant for the title of "Associate Professor" is required to have published, at least, 20 educational publications and scientific articles (even as a co-author), including invention patents or other intellectual property used in the educational activity. At the same time, during the 3 previous years, the applicant must have published at least 2 educational publications and at least 3 scientific articles related to the scientific specialty indicated on the application file.

Regarding applicants for the academic title of "Professor", the quantitative indicators of publication activity are much higher, the applicant is expected to have at least 50 educational publications and scientific articles published (even as a co-author), including invention patents or other intellectual property used in the educational activity. At the same time, during the previous 5 years, the applicant must have published at least 3 educational publications and at least 5 scientific articles related to the scientific specialty indicated on the application file. For both types of academic titles, the regulations specify that, the scientific articles must be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals that comply with the regulations established by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.

As we can see, quantitative indicators dominate over qualitative characteristics in the process of applicant’s scientific and teaching achievements evaluation. This legal gap has been pointed out by both groups of the scientific and educational community who have suggested excellent proposals for its elimination.

The position taken by the Scientific Council of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (The activities of this council were completed in 2018 following the establishment of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation) is interesting. In 2015, the Scientific Council severely criticized the current regulations on the attribution of academic titles by stressing the need for a radical reform of the regulatory framework governing the attribution of academic titles, the council noted that the existing procedure

[...] not only does not contribute to the improvement of training quality for highly qualified scientific personnel in our country, but also unjustifiably complicates the attribution of the academic titles "Associate Professor" and "Professor" for Russian scientists who are actively involved in the training of scientific personnel, and at the same time facilitate the obtaining of these same titles for those who do not have the required qualifications. (^{Scientific Russia, 2015}).

The Scientific Council has argued its position by mentioning the legal gap that we pointed earlier concerning the dominance of quantitative indicators over the qualitative indicators in the evaluation of scientific and teaching employees.

The Council considered that the requirements relating to quantitative indicators are overestimated, and stressed the absence of coherent requirements to objectively assess the qualitative aspect of scientific and educational activities. The experts also noted that “imitators and frauds” have a real opportunity to publish their fictitious articles - that do not meet minimum quality requirements - in scientific journals. At the same time, brilliant scientists working in the biggest scientific organizations of the country, and publishing the most reliable and internationally recognized articles, do not have the total number of publications required by the current legislation.

These arguments can be considered reasonable and essential for the modernization of the current certification system, but the option of a radical solution proposed by the Council in 2015 raises some critical observations.

The Council underlined in its declaration several interdependent steps leading towards a radical modernization of the legal framework governing the institution of academic titles attribution.

As a first step, it was suggested to consider as qualified publications, only those publications that appear in one of the international scientific articles databases - Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, MathSciNet …etc. and only monographs published under the stamp of the institutions: Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University and other Russian federal universities, as well as monographs published with the financial support of the state (Scientific Russia, 2015).

If we accept this suggestion in its radical form, the problem would not only be unsolved, but may become more complicated, especially when academic titles become reserved only for the capital’s eminent personalities and high-education institutions. As a result, provincial scientists, due to low funding in their regional organizations, and in absence of authoritative scientific journals in their institutions, objectively cannot have a real opportunity to internationally assess their publications.

Practically, in the provinces, not all of the research and teaching teams have a real opportunity to receive a financial support to publish their monographs, since the lobbying centers for this type of funding are not located in the provinces, but in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The adoption of this proposal into the state certification system could adversely affect the provincial science and the Russian high-education, depriving many young provincial scientists from obtaining an academic title, for the simple reason of not having connections or financial opportunities to publish their work in the most reputable scientific journals. After all, it is known that most journals indexed in international databases do not publish articles free of charge, especially for authors who do not yet have an academic title. In this case we will find ourselves facing the following situation: If a provincial scientist prepares articles of very high quality but does not have great fame or scientific authority, he could only publish his work in periodicals mentioned on the list of the Regions’ Higher attestation commission, but not in the capital.

This raises the questions: would it be possible to combine between the indicators used in the current evaluation of scientific personnel qualifications, and the suggestion of the Scientific Council? or is it worth to take one of the two extreme positions? It seems that in the current difficult situation, it will be necessary to take into account all the factors and conditions in which employees carry out their scientific and educational activities in order to extract a balanced solution.

Switching to a point-based evaluation model is one of the most balanced options that could be used to modernize the system of publication activity evaluation and the scientific and teaching employees’ qualification. The classification of scientific and educational articles - as well as the editions in which they are published - according to predefined qualitative parameters and the association of each group with an expressive sum of points, can become a useful means of avoiding the state of quantitative and qualitative inconsistency of regulatory and legal criteria governing the state certification system.

Such a point-based system should be sufficiently detailed in order to classify the different scientific articles by separating the articles published in the Higher Attestation Commission journals from the others, attributing more points to those publications that appear in the international scientific articles databases (WoS, Scopus ... etc). We suggest assigning the maximum number of points to monographs published using public funds support.

The points scale and the score classification of the different categories of scientific works, should be the subject of an in-depth discussion before adding it as a part of the regulations governing academic titles attribution. In this case, it is necessary to have the consensus of all classes in the scientific and educational community, and it should also be debated in the expert councils of the Higher Attestation Commission, as well as in the leading structures of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The second radical suggestion proposed by the Scientific Council is to delete the list of peer-reviewed scientific journals, in which the main scientific results of the dissertations should be published and approved by the Higher Attestation Commission, an action that we consider inappropriate in the modern circumstances. Despite all the shortcomings of the list, it still makes it possible to make a selection from the colossal number of scientific articles periodically published in Russia. It seems more reasonable and practically necessary to choose a less radical solution by improving the selection system of scientific journals, making the quality requirements stricter and excluding from the list those which do not meet the defined standards.

If we proceed to the complete abolition of this list of journals approved by the Higher Attestation Commission, the system granting academic titles will be compromised, because young researchers who aspire to obtain their first university degree will not be able to publish their work in scientific journals, mainly because of their financial situation. We are talking here about simple graduate students, young researchers, and not officials of large scientific and educational organizations, who have appropriate financial and organizational resources.

For this reason, existing shortcomings found in the current list of scientific journals do not justify its complete abolition, but calls for an immediate improvement of the selection system by which journals are sorted. in our opinion, radical measures can only lead to an even greater inconsistency in the regulatory framework organizing the system of scientific and educational personnel certification, by destabilizing its practical application.

The third suggestion proposed by the Scientific Council, is to hand the responsibility of academic titles’ attribution to the jurisdiction of the Higher Attestation Commission, a suggestion that we also find controversial. Indeed, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation does not have a collective of experts capable of assessing the scientific level of applicants in all the various scientific fields. However, encouraging the Higher Attestation Commission to work on cases of academic title attribution leads to a number of difficulties. First, the Higher Attestation Commission is already overloaded with its mission to assess the quality of research theses, the number of which is constantly increasing. Second, it seems that a meaningful scientific assessment of the of the applicants’ achievements could be justified - under current legislation - by the same organizations in which they work.

This problem can be solved in a slightly different way. It seems that in this case, it is better to opt towards improvement of the work carried out by the scientific councils included in scientific and educational organizations. These councils will be able to file academic title attribution petitions to the Ministry of Science and superior Education of the Russian Federation.

At the same time, we can work on the modernization of the regulations that organize the evaluation of scientific qualifications, while revising the requirements to be fulfilled by scientific journals in order to be approved in the journal list of the Higher Attestation Commission. Also, the introduction of a point-based evaluation system to assess the publication activity of applicants, this way, it would be possible to have a significant increase in the efficiency of the whole certification system, rather than to choose radical measures targeting existing mechanisms which have been functioning for many years despite their shortcomings.

A number of experts have proposed to temporarily suspend the use of the current regulation on academic certification until the adoption of a new one, which also seems inappropriate, given that a complete suspension of the certification mechanism even for a short period, will have a very negative impact on young researchers, scientists and university academics who are currently in the process of fulfilling the conditions to obtain a university degree. This action will create a situation of uncertainty for them, and the new regulations can still considerably complicate the path to obtain the title "Associate professor" or "professor". This situation will be destructive for young researchers who currently do not have as much motivation to pursue scientific research.

The implementation of strict certification requirements must necessarily be preceded by an increase in the social and material guarantees, to ensure decent working conditions for young scientists and educators, which will allow them to objectively demonstrate their scientific qualifications, these guarantees could only be obtained through substantial state support. The increase in material guarantees should correspond to the scientific qualifications of the concerned individuals and their academic titles. The presence of the academic title indicates the state's recognition for their significant scientific achievements. In the states of Western Europe, considerable attention is paid to the material guarantees dedicated to the activities of teachers and scientists. In particular, according to the German law on remuneration of 23 May 1975 (as amended on 9 December 2019), the basic monthly salary for junior professors (Juniorprofessor) is set at 4,898.68 euros, and for professors (Professor) and university professors (Universitätsprofessor) it varies according to the level of scientific qualification between 6,085.88 to 7,756.53 euros (GERMANY, 1975), which is a considerably motivating to implement scientific and educational activities and to improve scientific skills.