The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has introduced large-scale amendments to Resolution No. 44 of January 12, 2022, which regulates the procedure for awarding and revoking the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree. The new regulations aim to make the defense procedure more transparent and the response to academic misconduct stricter and unavoidable. These changes affect both degree applicants and higher education institutions hosting dissertation defenses.
Essence of the Reform and Types of Violations
According to the new rules, a clear distinction is made between two fundamentally different situations: procedural violations and manifestations of dishonesty. The first case involves terminating the decisions of one-time specialized academic councils due to non-compliance with established regulations. The second case involves stripping someone of an already awarded PhD degree. If plagiarism, fabrication, or falsification is discovered in a dissertation or related scientific publications, the academic degree can be revoked even many years after it was obtained, as there is no statute of limitations for such violations.
University Accountability and Publication Requirements
The reform places personal and institutional responsibility not only on the authors of scientific papers but also on the host organizations. If an authorized body or the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance confirms plagiarism, the educational institution will be deprived of the right to create one-time specialized academic councils in the relevant specialty for one year. Furthermore, requirements for publications have become stricter: self-plagiarism is excluded from credit, no more than one article by the applicant is allowed per journal issue, and the relevance of scientific works is now assessed by real substantive links rather than formal keyword matches.
