Ways to Improve the Efficiency of Doctoral Education

Abstract

The current process of doctoral education, as well as its results, remain the target of severe criticism despite the adoption of a system of measures aimed at improving the quality of dissertation review including ubiquitous plagiarism checks, reduction of the number of defenses of substandard dissertations and a stricter code of practice for dissertation committees. The article identifies potential ways to improve dissertation quality, drawing on an analysis of the dynamics of indicators pertaining to the training of contemporary Russian doctoral students and the activity of their academic supervisors. The authors give special consideration to justified recommendations concerning the following issues: improvement of the quality of doctoral student body; increase in scholarship provision in conjunction with the creation of financial incentives for dissertation completion and defense; development of mechanisms to improve the performance of academic supervisors; refinement of the procedure of dissertation results examination in each of three interconnected stages: student performance review, dissertation defense and dissertation review by the expert board of the State Commissions for Academic Degrees and Titles.