Experts believe that the productivity of the new generation of scientists depends not only on decent pay but also on the availability of modern infrastructure and experienced mentors.
On Friday, January 21, Russia celebrates Postgraduate Student Day. This date was not chosen by chance - exactly 97 years ago, the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR has adopted a number of documents regulating the training of scientists in our country. That is laid the foundation for the Soviet scientific school, the level of which a few decades later allowed to build the world’s first nuclear power plant, send a man into space, and turn the Soviet Union into an advanced technological power.
And what is a modern postgraduate school? Is it the next step of higher education or the starting block of an academic career? What do its graduates become? And, most importantly, is this system capable of solving the very important task of changing generations in higher education institutions, research institutes, and the research centres of leading domestic companies?
Paradoxically, a few years ago the answer to this question was unequivocal: of course not. After all, up until this year, according to the order of the Ministry of Higher Education and Science No. 1259 from November 19, 2013, to graduate from postgraduate school, it was not even necessary to defend a dissertation. It was only enough to pass the exam, which was similar to the final certification for master’s and bachelor’s degrees. If the candidates were successful, they received a diploma, which gave them the right to teach in universities, and their studies ended there.
Of course, few people wanted to write a dissertation, since it was not mandatory. Only those enthusiasts who understood that a career as a scientist would not work if they took the path of least resistance. And so they worked in laboratories, conducted experiments, learned to interpret and analyze the data obtained, that is, they created a scientific groundwork, which is the basis of the dissertation. The rest—and this was the vast majority—were content to fulfil not the most difficult threshold requirements.
As a result, the level of postgraduate school graduates at most universities fell to critically low figures. The problem became so acute that it even required the personal intervention of Vladimir Putin to solve it.
"Postgraduate school should not just be a continuation of higher education. It is not another level of higher education, but it is the training of a young scientist," the Russian president noted in January 2019.
It took two years to document this position. Now the defence of a dissertation is once again a prerequisite for graduating from graduate school. However, a number of institutions of higher education did not wait for the Ministry to give an official signal and revised their approach to the education of scientific personnel back in 2019, immediately after Vladimir Putin's statement. Rector Vladimir Litvinenko of the St. Petersburg Mining University was one of the first to speak out about the need to sharply increase the percentage of defences. He also urged his colleagues to "get rid of poverty in science," because "this is the only way to raise and retain talented young specialists.
The basic stipend at the oldest technical school in Russia was raised to 30 thousand rubles, and the most successful young people, in case of excellent academic performance, knowledge of a foreign language, and adherence to the schedule for their dissertation started earning up to 60 thousand rubles per month. But the requirements for them now were much higher.
“Postgraduate students have one task: to prepare a quality dissertation, which should offer a solution to a specific engineering problem related to progress in a particular scientific direction. This is research that is based on a large body of knowledge and culminates in a certain result, supported by laboratory or field experiments. We have all the necessary conditions for this, in particular, we have an excellent instrument and laboratory base that is constantly replenished and upgraded,” Vladimir Litvinenko emphasized.
The transformation of the system is already bearing fruit. For example, while only 29% of final-year postgraduate students at Mining University defended their dissertations on time in 2019, in 2020 their share rose to 40%, and in 2021 - to 50%. The plan is to bring that figure to the highest possible level.
“The program of immersion in the scientific environment of the university consists of several stages, and the students become its participants immediately after entering the first year. Initially, under the guidance of leading professors and associate professors, they form a scientific reserve, participate in research that is conducted in the framework of grants and contracts. Then, already in their senior year, the most talented and successful of them receive the status of research intern and begin to purposefully prepare for entry into graduate school. The appearance of random people there is practically eliminated. All the guys understand perfectly well what tasks they face and what expectations are connected to them,” says Marat Rudakov, the vice-rector for postgraduate and doctoral studies at St. Petersburg Mining University.
At present, the University has 354 postgraduate students including 59 foreign citizens. Last year, 120 people were admitted as first-year students. A two-week scientific and educational course called “Basic Competencies of a Young Scientist” was held for them at the renovated training centre in the village of Solnechnoye. In particular, it included introductory lectures on the development of the fuel and energy and mineral resource complexes, and the basics of publication activity, patenting, and intellectual property protection. This format was a kind of experiment aimed at reducing the period of adaptation of researchers, primarily those who received their higher education diplomas in other universities.
One of the visible results of the event was the fact that all first-year postgraduate students have already prepared and defended scientific reviews on the topics of their future dissertations. Moreover, each of them contains an analysis of 100 highly cited scientific sources. Graduate students are also doing similar work.
“Over the past two years, despite the pandemic, many new laboratories have appeared at Mining University, and the instrumental base has expanded, allowing us to conduct world-class research here. The attitude toward the mission of the postgraduate student has also changed. Now he or she is a full-fledged participant in scientific experiments, who works on obtaining new fundamental or applied knowledge, and has ample progression opportunities. One of these is to continue working on your dissertation abroad, at partner institutions, and to earn a double degree – Russian ‘candidate’ and European ‘PhD’,” explained third-year postgraduate student Dmitry Sidorov, who conducts research at the Arktika Science Center.
As a member of twenty young scientists from universities that are part of the Nedra consortium, he will soon leave for Germany to participate in the joint Russian-German program “Natural Resources - Energy – Sustainability”. It was initiated by Vladimir Litvinenko, rector of St. Petersburg Mining University, and is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD and the International Center of Competence in Mining Engineering Education under the auspices of UNESCO.
“The project is designed for several years ahead. This is one of the tools to motivate young people to seriously engage in science, to grow professionally. Most importantly, they have all committed to return to their ‘alma mater’ and continue working in the homeland, gaining valuable foreign experience. Similar agreements have been signed with other partners from Austria, Finland, and several other countries. Moreover, each university has appointed specific scientific advisors for our postgraduate students, which allows them to manage their time as effectively as possible,” says Vladimir Vasilyev, dean of the faculty of Postgraduate and Doctoral Studies at Mining University.
The administration of St. Petersburg Mining University decided on a list of 12 strategic research topics which are the main focus of scientists. This includes, for example, increasing the energy profitability (EROI) and energy efficiency of enterprises, the study of the carbon cycle and its impact on the global climate, the development of hydrogen energy, increasing the efficiency of hydrocarbon production, and several others. All these areas, related both to the improvement of the traditional mineral sector and to the development of alternative technologies, are undoubtedly in need of breakthrough ideas. This means that they also need those who will generate them, including talented and industrious young people.
