From 1 September 2022, the JINR Dissertation Councils, whose activity was paused in order to re-register for the new nomenclature of scientific specialities, resumed their work. The submission of dissertations for evaluation and defence is now open.

According to recent changes, the Russian Federation has an updated nomenclature of scientific specialities, approved by order No. 118 of the the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia from 24 February 2021 . All organizations exercising the right to award academic degrees were instructed to adapt their Dissertation Councils to the new nomenclature within a certain time frame.

At JINR, the transition period, during which Dissertation Councils were re-registered, lasted from 24 to 31 August this year. The short final stage of this transition was preceded by hard work of the JINR Laboratories and the JINR Qualification Committee on the formation of the updated membership of the Dissertation Councils. The list of specialities within which degrees are awarded at JINR was updated. Thus, a new speciality 1.3.10. Low temperature physics for technical sciences has been added to the Dissertation Council for particle physics established at VBLHEP. The Dissertation Council for Nuclear Physics at DLNP was added to the speciality “1.3.18. Charged Particle Beam Physics and Accelerator Engineering” in the Physical and Mathematical Sciences. In a number of councils, in accordance with the new nomenclature, the specialities “Physics of atomic nuclei and elementary particles” and “High Energy Physics” were merged into a single speciality “1.3.15. Physics of atomic nuclei and elementary particles, high-energy physics.”

The procedure for the preparation and defence of dissertations in the JINR Dissertation Councils remained unchanged. The previously received certificates of candidates’ examinations and conclusions of dissertation organizations, issued prior to the transition of councils to the new nomenclature, remain valid. At the same time, the thesis itself, the abstract, and other documents submitted by the applicant to the dissertation council must be prepared with the new academic specialty codes.

The decision to introduce a new nomenclature for scientific specialities in Russia has been developed over the last few years. A large team of scientists and specialists representing the RAS, leading universities, and research institutes, as well as the Higher Attestation Commission under the Ministry of Education and Science, took part in preparing the updated list. The work was carried out taking into account the strategy for scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation and was supported at the joint meeting of the Presidium of the State Council and the Presidential Council for Science and Education in February 2020. A total of 330 organizations, including federal executive bodies of power, higher educational institutions, state academies of science, and others, submitted proposals to the draft of the new nomenclature.

In the new list, the number of groups of scientific specialities has been reduced from 52 to 34, and the number of specialities has been reduced from 430 to 351. At the same time, 21 specialties have been added to the nomenclature that do not belong to existing groups. Four new groups have been formed: Information and Computer Science, Biotechnology, Mining and Mineral Sciences, and Cognitive Sciences. Groups of specialties on theology, clinical medicine, construction, and architecture each got one new discipline.

An important aspect of the transformation of the nomenclature of scientific specialities was the preparation of a set of measures to minimise the risks associated with its introduction. More than half of the Dissertation Councils functioning on the basis of Russian organizations have been re-registered automatically. The remaining network of councils, including those within organizations exercising the right to independently award academic degrees, carry out the transition within a year and a half after the new nomenclature came into force. The developed measures made it possible to ensure the stability of the entire network of Dissertation Councils during this period of significant change for degree applicants.