Awarding academic titles as a public service: Optimization of administrative procedures and transition to a digital model

The transition to a digital model of providing the public service of conferring academic titles implies fundamental changes in this public institution, which are associated with both the need to make a technological map for digitizing the service and optimization of the very procedure for awarding academic titles. The paper discusses technological and institutional aspects of providing the public service of conferring academic titles in a digital form. The theories of public administration and public services, digitalization, jurisprudence and project management constitute the methodological framework of the article. The classical research methods, such as analysis and synthesis, are used. The empirical data are obtained through integration of the legal acts regulating the principles and mechanisms for rendering public services and conferring academic titles with the project documents of the Department of Scientific and Scientific-Pedagogical Workers Certification of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. We indicate the need to legalize the procedures for initiating the nomination of an applicant for academic titles and justify the attribution of academic titles to the academic rights of scientific and scientific-pedagogical workers. Special focus of the study is on the reorganization of the academic titles institution and its role in assessing scientific qualifications and developing academic career. We address the controversial issue of granting the leading universities the right to independently confer academic titles (transition to a hybrid format) and emphasize the importance of balance between local and centralized regulation. In prospect the initiative to update the quantitative requirements and criteria for applicants for academic titles should be a key tool in revising the content of academic titles.