Uzbekistan intends to introduce new model of postgraduate education

The document is designed to create favorable conditions for conducting scientific activities, increasing the responsibility of higher educational and scientific research institutions for the training of scientific and scientific and pedagogical personnel of higher qualification, improving the quality of their attestation, and implementing the Strategy for the five priority development directions of the Republic of Uzbekistan in 2017-2021.

The document proposes to abolish the Higher Attestation Commission under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan from 1 June 2018.

In addition, a requirement is made for mandatory publication in information resources of the Internet of texts of dissertations for the academic degrees of the Ph.D. and the Doctor of Science (DSc) for public inspection.

Deputy Minister of Innovation Development Sherzod Shermatov said that the President of Uzbekistan was instructed to critically examine the activities of the Higher Attestation Commission under the Cabinet of Ministers.

“According to the Scopus database in 2016, the number of scientific publications quoted was 575, while in Kazakhstan – 3066. There are 18 publications per million inhabitants in Uzbekistan, 91 in Azerbaijan, 170 in Kazakhstan, 189 in Belarus, 227 in Ukraine Russia - 509,” Sherzod Shermatov said.

"Moreover, despite the smaller number, the quality of articles is also not higher. The average citation index per publication is only 0.37, while in Russia it is 0.54, Ukraine - 0.61, Azerbaijan - 0.89, Belarus - 0.94. Out of more than 2,500 doctors of sciences, only 300 have the index "Hirsha", of which only 32 doctors have "Hirsha" index more than 5", the deputy minister added.

"Despite the existence of a too complicated system for awarding degrees, where a lot of bureaucratic filters and basic powers are concentrated in HAC and not in universities as in economically developed countries, it does not stimulate the improvement of the quality of scientific activity in accordance with international requirements," Shermatov stressed.

"Both international university ratings: QS and THE require at least 200 scientific publications in Scopus magazines to consider the inclusion of the university in the TOP-1000 world. Therefore, Uzbekistan has no university in TOP-1000 as only 575 publications are published in Uzbekistan a year," Sherzod Shermatov said.