Principles of and approaches to evaluating the effectiveness of training of scientific personnel in graduate school

Russian graduate school occupies an important place in the system of training of highly qualified personnel, meeting the needs of modern economy, social sphere and governance. Graduate school is seen as a complex scientific-educational personnel training system. The effectiveness of this system is a relevant question not only in connection with significant reduction in the number of defended dissertations in the past decade, the negative trend which worries many experts; but also with the beginning of the reform process of the institute of graduate studies and its transfer to the third level of higher education. What are the performance criteria applicable to the new graduate school, what principles in their selection should we be guided by? It is possible to assess the effectiveness of any action, process, operation, programs with the help of a certain set of quantitative and qualitative indicators reflecting a ratio of expenses to results, and the achievement of goals...