Recently, the legislative norms of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the field of science were amended by the Order “On Changes and Amendments to Certain Orders of the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan” dated January 9, 2023. Among other things, the regulatory requirements for publications for obtaining academic titles and scientific degrees have changed. The specialists of our company have thoroughly analysed this regulation and offer scientists to learn about the main changes in the context of scientific publications.
The order “On changes and amendments to some orders of the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan” introduces changes to the following regulations:
- Order of the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Approval of the Rules for Awarding Degrees”.
- Order of the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Approval of the Model Regulations on the Dissertation Council”.
- Order of the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Approval of the Rules for Conferring Academic Titles (associate professor, professor)”.
- Order of the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Approval of the Requirements for Scientific Publications for their Inclusion in the List of Journals Recommended for Publishing the Results of Scientific Activity”.
Let us take a closer look at the changes in each of them.
1. Rules for awarding scientific degrees: major changes
◎ At the regulatory level, a distinction is made between the types of scientific documents: articles, reviews, articles in press, conference paper, proceedings (publications must correspond to certain types).
To defend a thesis, it is necessary to perform the regulatory requirements for the number of articles:
◎ 1 publication of an article or review in the journal included in the Web of Science Core Collection (AHCI, SCIE, SSCI) with a Q1-Q4 / Scopus score of at least 25 percentile + 3 articles in journals approved by the Committee for Control in Education and Science (CCES).
Previously, separation by document type (Article and Review) was not applied.
Furthermore, for specialities related to the Kazakh language and literature, Kazakh philology, the history of Kazakhstan, Kazakh philosophy, this item has some features. Only publications in Web of Science Core Collection journals with a Q1-Q4 score in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index or Scopus with a CiteScore percentile of 25+ (+3 CCES articles) are counted.
◎ At least 2 articles or 1 article + 1 review in international peer-reviewed scientific journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection database (AHCI, SCIE, SSCI) with a Q1-Q3 score / Scopus with 35+ percentile scores.
Previously, this item included the presence of 1 Web of Science article with an impact factor (Q1-Q4) or in Scopus with a percentile of at least 25 + 1 article in a Web of Science journal (Q1-Q3) or Scopus with at least 50 percentile.
◎ Added a clause on admission to defence with the number of publications of at least 1 article in an international peer-reviewed scientific journal indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection database (AHCI, SCIE, SSCI) with a Q1-Q2 / Scopus with at least 35 percentile.
◎ If there is one scientific article in the Web of Science Core Collection with a Q1 score or Scopus percentile of 75+, no other publications are required.
Previously, this item did not make provision for the possibility of publishing in Scopus journals, only Q1 according to JCR.
◎ A clause has also been added that prescribes admission to the defence of a dissertation, provided a presence of a chapter in a monograph (the doctoral student owns at least 3 printed sheets), which was published by Elsevier, Brill, CRC Press, DeGruyter, Edward Elgar Publishing, John Wiley & Sons, McGraw Hill, Palgrave Macmillan, Peter Lang, Prentice Hall, Routledge, Sage Publications, Springer Nature, Taylor and Francis, Wolters Kluwer, or a university publisher in the top 100 US News Best Global Universities Rankings, Academic Ranking of World Universities, or Times Higher Education World University (hereinafter – journals of a certain list).
◎ For specialities related to the Kazakh language and literature, Kazakh philology, the history of Kazakhstan, Kazakh philosophy, researchers are allowed to be admitted to the defence if they have at least 5 articles in CCES journals, one of which is in English + 2 oral presentations at international scientific conferences.
◎ Publication in international peer-reviewed scientific journals from the Multidisciplinary direction is allowed.
◎ If a scientist published an article in the Scopus/Web of Science journal, which was excluded from the database due to violations, then the publication for the current and previous year is not considered.
◎ Quartile and percentile of Scopus and Web of Science journals are considered for the year of publication or for the year preceding the year of publication.
◎ The item was removed, which prescribed that in the case of more publications in Scopus / Web of Science than required, they will be counted as CCES articles.
◎ The item that equates foreign patents included in the Web of Science with publications in international peer-reviewed scientific journals was removed.
◎ The wording “universities with a special status” was removed from the normative practice.
For Members of the Expert Council
◎ Regulatory requirements for the number of Web of Science publications have been expanded with a list of indices (AHCI, SCIE, SSCI). The requirements regarding the required number of articles, their indicators and the h-index stayed unchanged.
◎ For the Members of the Expert Council, a clause has been added that a monograph (the candidate owns at least 3 printed sheets) that is published in publishing houses of a certain list is counted as 2 scientific articles in international peer-reviewed scientific journals. If there is a chapter in the above monograph (the candidate owns at least 1 printed sheet), it is counted as 1 article in an international peer-reviewed scientific journal.
2. Changing the rules for the formation of the thesis council
◎ The wording “universities with a special status” has been removed from the normative practice.
◎ An item was added on some features of the formation of the thesis council. For the areas of study 8D01 Pedagogical Sciences, 8D02 Arts and Humanities, in the case of a doctoral student's defence, who does not have an article in an international peer-reviewed journal, at least 1 foreign scientist is involved in the temporary composition of the thesis council with an oral presentation of a review of the thesis of the doctoral candidate, whose principal place of work is a university included in the top 200 of the international Academic Ranking of World Universities, Times Higher Education World University Rankings or US News Best Global Universities Rankings or has published at least 2 articles and (or) reviews in journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection database (AHCI, SCIE, SSCI) over the last 5 years.
◎ Regulatory requirements for the number of Web of Science publications have been expanded with a list of indices (AHCI, SCIE, SSCI). Requirements regarding the required number of articles, their indicators stayed unchanged.
3. What has changed in the rules for conferring academic titles?
◎ Publication in international peer-reviewed scientific journals from the Multidisciplinary direction is allowed.
◎ An item was added that the quartile according to the Journal Citation Reports is determined by the impact factor.
◎ A clause has been added that a monograph (the candidate owns at least 3 printed sheets), which is published in publishing houses of a certain list, is counted as 2 scientific articles in international peer-reviewed scientific journals. If there is a chapter in the above monograph (the candidate owns at least 1 printed sheet), it is counted as 1 article in an international peer-reviewed scientific journal.
4. Formation of the list of scientific journals (CCES)
◎ Apart from some wording, the main change affected the periodicity of journals: at least 4 times a year instead of 2.
The largest number of changes was introduced to the rules for awarding scientific degrees. Analysing the new legislative requirements, one can conclude that globally, the regulatory requirements for the quantity and quality of scientific publications have not changed. But still, they should be considered in further work on scientific materials. Scientists from Kazakhstan must still have publications in the Scopus/Web of Science rated journals to achieve the main scientific goals, which indicates the desire to improve the quality of scientific materials and their international recognition.
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