The President of the Russian Federation has signed a law entitling the higher education institutions based at the Skolkovo Innovation Center to award academic degrees of Candidate of Sciences and Doctor of Sciences that will be recognized at the national level.
Pursuant to the law, future holders of Skoltech academic degrees will enjoy rights of persons holding degrees awarded within the state academic degree system.
Graduates who had received a Skoltech PhD prior to the publication of the new law have the same rights as holders of the Candidate of Sciences degree.
Due to the new status, Skoltech will benefit from several additional rights, such as approving its own educational standards and requirements for postgraduate programs, establishing a dissertation board, defining requirements for dissertations and thesis defense rules, officially recognizing foreign education and/or qualifications for the purpose of education and employment.
These rights are exercised only by the leading Russian universities, such as Lomonosov Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University, federal universities and national research universities, and higher education organizations that have achieved research and/or engineering excellence and are included in the list approved by the Russian President.
Currently, Skoltech offers seven PhD programs: Mathematics and Mechanics, Physics, Computational and Data Science and Engineering, Life Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering, Engineering Systems, and Petroleum Engineering. All the programs combine fundamental, experimental, and innovative research, and benefit from the unique experience of internationally recognized professors, state-of-the art methods, and latest achievements in the field of specialization. Up until recently, Skoltech PhD degrees were not recognized by the Russian state, although all the PhD programs have state accreditation, and three of them — Computational and Data Science and Engineering, Life Sciences, and Materials Science and Engineering — have received international accreditation in accordance with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education.
Skoltech also awards PhD degrees on double-degree programs under joint research supervision agreements with international universities.
Thus, the new law helps raise the international appeal and competitiveness of Russian education, in line with the National Project Education and the priority project of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science “Development of the Export Potential of the Russian Education System,” while opening up new opportunities for Skoltech’s doctoral graduates.
Contact information:
Skoltech Communications
+7 (495) 280 14 81
