Publication requirements for admission to defense in 2024

In Kazakhstan, as in many other countries, the process of achieving a doctorate is a difficult but important stage in the life of a researcher. In this article, the publication requirements for admission to defense in 2024 

Recently, the legislative norms of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the field of science were amended by the Order "On Amendments and Supplements to Certain Orders of the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan" dated January 9, 2023

Today we will consider only those aspects of the law that concern scientific publications, and also give advice on which option is best for the applicant 

Let's look at this point:

• Order of the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On approval of the Rules for awarding degrees".

                        Rules for awarding scientific degrees

 Main changes

At the regulatory level, the difference between types of scientific documents is prescribed: Articles (Article), Reviews (Review), Articles in Press (Article in Press), Conference Paper, Proceedings (publications must correspond to certain types). Let's take a closer look at them. 

Article - an original article with the conducted research with the publication of the results of the research that the doctoral student is studying 

Review — Systematic review or Meta-analysis — a review article on the topic of the applicant’s research. 

Article in press — article in print — article accepted and posted in a separate section of the journal — articles are being prepared for publication 

Conference Paper, Proceedings — conference abstracts 

Pre-publication rules for admission to defense 

There are 5 options that an applicant can complete in order to gain access to protection. We will now describe each of them and at the end of the article we will write which option is best to choose:

1. One publication of an article (Article) or review (Review) in a Web of Science Core Collection journal (AHCI, SCIE, SSCI) with a Q1-Q4 / Scopus score of at least 25 percentile + 3 articles in KKSON journals
2. At least 2 original articles (Article) or 1 article (Article) and 1 review (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
3. 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 score of at least 35 percentile.
4. At least one research article in a Web of Science Core Collection journal with a Q1 or Scopus percentile of 75+ 
5. Having a chapter in a monograph (the doctoral student owns at least 3 printed sheets) 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 by a university press from the top 100 of the US News Best Global Universities Rankings, Academic Ranking of World Universities or Times Higher Education World University (hereinafter referred to as publishers of a specific list).

A few more nuances:

— Publication in international peer-reviewed scientific journals in the Multidisciplinary area is permitted.

— The quartile according to Journal Citation Reports is determined by the impact factor.

For specialties related to the Kazakh language and literature, Kazakh philology, history of Kazakhstan, Kazakh philosophy, researchers are admitted to defense if they have at least 5 articles in the KKSON journals, one of which is in English + 2 oral presentations at international scientific conferences.

If a scientist published an article in a Scopus/Web of Science publication that was excluded from the database due to violations, then the publication for the current and previous years is not taken into account.

Quartiles and percentiles of Scopus and Web of Science journals are taken into account for the year of publication or for the year preceding the year of publication.

So which of the proposed options is better to choose? 

Article Academy has extensive long-term experience in publishing scientific articles in more than 100 international publications of various levels 

Let's consider them all in order:

Option 1 — This option will be the fastest if you have KKSON publications that can accept and publish your articles without problems. Making 1 publication in journals with a percentile of 25 is not as difficult as in the previous option. If you do not have the option of cooperation with KKSON publications, it is better to discard this option and fulfill the requirements of the 2nd point. 

Option 2 — one of the simplest options. In our work, we often recommend this option to clients, since it can be done quite quickly and is more reliable than the 3rd (we will explain why now).

Option 3 — the simplest — but there may be a problem if the publication loses indexation or percentile, with the 2nd option you have 2 articles and in any case you diversify the risks and will definitely defend yourself. 

4th option — For some fields of knowledge, where there is an opportunity for fairly quick publication in journals with a 75% percentile — of course, you need to choose this option, since it will be both cheaper and faster — but this method also has one drawback — the journal's indicator may fall and then the article is not counted. If you are 100% confident in the journal and you have the opportunity for such publication — you need to choose this option.

5th option — the most difficult — it is very difficult to publish a monograph in one of these journals, we do not recommend considering it unless you have great opportunities, several tens of thousands of dollars and several years of patience for such a publication.

Conclusions 

Thus, the article emphasizes the importance of maintaining high standards at every stage of obtaining an academic degree in Kazakhstan, from academic preparation and writing a dissertation to publishing research results. This contributes to the development of science in the country and raising the professional level of future scientists. And as far as we see in 2024, one of the most important requirements is the publication of research results in peer-reviewed scientific journals. This not only demonstrates the scientific activity of the applicant, but also confirms the relevance and significance of his research for the scientific community. 

Article Academy provides comprehensive services for publishing scientific articles in international journals indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. For more than 4 years of work, we have published more than 1100 articles in reputable journals Scopus and Web of Science. If you need a full package of publications to defend a scientific article, leave a request on the website and our managers will contact you and consult on all the details!