New rules for promotions in the academic hierarchy expected

The Minister of Education Prof. Anelia Klisarova announced in a speech in that new rules are being drafted for awarding the titles "docent" and "professor". The news comes from the daily newspaper Sega.

According to Prof. Klisarova, there has been a 10 times increase in the numbers of docents and professors at Bulgarian universities, a shaky number considering that no official statistics exist. During 2012 alone, 366 people have been promoted to professors and 385 to docents according to the only available data from the Ministry of Education. A dramatic rise started after a new law for the development of academia was passed in 2010. Prior to the law, titles were awarded by a national accreditation committee which required a minimum number of publications and citations in Bulgarian and international publication. This model was borrowed from the former Soviet Union. The same committee following the same rules gave titles in all disciplines. The committee also approved all PhDs awarded at Bulgarian universities. Moreover, according to the old law, only PhDs approved by the committee were valid within Bulgaria - i.e., foreign PhDs didn't count unless a second defense was done in front of the committee in Bulgarian.

It is easy to see the pros and cons of such a system. On the plus side, a single committee ensured the uniformity of all degrees and set equal standards. On the minus side, a single committee could create a bottleneck, promotions can be slow; if the committee is not impartial, then the whole process is pointless; and finally is it really possible for one and the same committee the serve the needs of a wide range of fields and a wide range of institutions?

Following the 2010 law, academic institutions were given a "carte blanche" to do their own promotions with the sole requirement that a "dissertation" (i.e., some form of a written work or compilation of works) is defended in the process. Universities were allowed to set stricter internal rules for promotion, but instead they collectively "shot themselves in the foot" and started granting promotions left and right. The worst offenders were small provincial colleges and new private and for-profit universities, which used the loophole to create faculty out of thin air, but large universities were not blameless either. 

In her speech, Prof. Klisarova said that the new rules are being drafted by the Counsel of Rectors and the Bulgarian Academy of Science. The standards will be tailored to the different disciplines.  It is yet unclear how these new rules will be enforced.