The evaluation of the contribution of dissertational researches into the knowledge in priority areas of science, technology and engineering in Russia

In order to solve tasks related to planning and evaluating research results as well as personnel training for such research within the framework of priority academic, technical and technological development areas in the Russian Federation we need tools allowing for defining whether thesis research falls under one of priority areas or not. Analysis of data from Dissertation Councils reports demonstrates that this data cannot be used for evaluating thesis research input into priority areas. We suggest two stage method of automated solution for the stated problem using the structure of information materials accompanying thesis research as well as text classification methods. In order to im- plement this approach we built matrices demonstrating correlation between research specializations and priority areas and also thesaurus that contains morphemes for each priority area characterizing research topics. We used sample thesis collection to test this method and got good results. Using this method for five priority areas we discovered that about 8 % of thesis research conducted during the last four years fall under one of five priority areas. This method can be a useful tool for both Dissertation Councils created at educational and research institutions and academic funds supporting priority areas research, as well as for administrative bodies working in educational and economic management areas when making decisions concerning postgraduate enrollment numbers.