Reproduction of Higher Qualification Scientific Personnel: Global and National Challenges

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of reproduction of highly qualified scientific personnel in the national and world context. Based on national statistics, legislative documents and secondary information, the state and effectiveness of doctoral training in research institutes and higher education institutions are analyzed at the background of global trends in the doctoral education. Doctoral education plays a crucial role in the economic and social development of any country in the era of the knowledge economy. The knowledge economy, in its turn, along with globalization and the mass character of undergraduate education sets a new context for doctoral training worldwide. The convergence of national systems is a megatrend in the development of doctoral training. Initiatives have been spread around the world to further study the nature of doctoral training and improve it in response to innovative challenges. Systemic features of the Ukrainian model have been developed, by which it differs from the existing models of economically developed countries. It is concluded, that Ukraine has largely preserved the Soviet system of training of highly qualified scientific personnel, which is characterized by a centralized state regulation and control, limited rights of scientific and educational institutions in these activities, a lack of competition of training programs, a complicated procedure and a high cost of the dissertation defense procedure, which negatively affect the quality of training and system efficiency. A lack of an active research environment due to an insufficient funding for research and development in universities and research institutes leads to a low percentage of successful completion of postgraduate studies (27 % of successful defenses in universities and 12 % — in research institutes). It was revealed that over the period 1993—2018, there was a rapid increase in the share of new candidates and doctors of sciences in legal, pedagogical and economic disciplines and a decrease in the share of physical, mathematical, chemical, biological, geological and agricultural sciences. It is argued, that the policy of doctoral training is not coherent with the policy of national scientific and innovative priorities and not in line with global trends.