Applications for the International PhD Programme for Belarus Have Closed

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On 15 September 2011, applications closed for the International PhD Programme for Belarus (/2011/06/mizhnarodnaya-phd-pragrama-dlya-belarusi/).

The programme is coordinated by the Political Sphere Institute.

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The competition attracted considerable interest: 35 applications were submitted for 5 places. The submitted materials are currently being reviewed by the Programme Council and experts.

The results of the competition will be known by the end of October 2011.

The International PhD Programme for Belarus is aimed at addressing urgent problems of the Belarusian academic and expert community.

The dissertation defence procedure in Belarus is becoming increasingly bureaucratised and closed. This situation prevents many researchers from obtaining an academic degree if, for various reasons, they lack the necessary connections: influential supervisors, informal contacts, and so on.

In addition, a fairly broad group of specialists cannot obtain an academic degree because of their political engagement, public activity, or the topic of their dissertation, if it is politically sensitive. The absence of a degree often leads specialists to leave the academic and research field, fully or partially, which negatively affects the development of the community itself.

The International PhD Programme offers a mechanism for gradually addressing these problems.