Marina's Client Case Study

The team conducted an audit and drew up a plan without making any empty promises.

According to Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 44, a minimum of three publications is required to defend a PhD dissertation. However, there is an important detail: an article published in a Q1–Q3 Scopus journal counts as two publications.

In other words, the math is simple:

• 1 Scopus (Q1–Q3) + 1 full-length article in Category “B” = 3 credited publications

Plan:

• Ukrainian Dental Almanac—indexed in Scopus (Q4) and, at the same time, Category “B”; publication is free of charge, with an actual turnaround time of 10–12 weeks;
• A new full-length article in Category "B"—with one or at most two authors—must be counted as 1.0;
• Everything happens simultaneously—there's no sequential "first one thing, then another."

Step 1 — Scopus Article

The empirical data was already included in Marina's dissertation—there's no need to start from scratch.
Team:

• I restructured the material to meet the requirements of the Ukrainian Dental Almanac;
• I prepared the abstract and keywords for Scopus indexing;
• I checked it using Strikeplagiarism before submitting it;
• I handled all communication with the editorial staff myself—from submission to acceptance;
• Result: The article is accepted and published within 10–12 weeks.

Step 2 — New Article in Category "B"

At the same time, we prepared a new, full-fledged article—without any unnecessary co-authors—so that it would count as 1.0 rather than 0.5. It was published in a verified Category "B" journal within 5 weeks.

Step 3 — Verification of the Complete Set of Documents

Before submitting the work for interdepartmental review, the team verified the following:

• A bioethics committee review is required for clinical trials in dentistry;
• Documents on the implementation of results in clinical practice;
• Accuracy of the calculation of publications, taking into account the weighting factors.

Composition of the ad hoc committee: registration in the Unified Electronic Database of Education and Science (EDEBO), no joint publications in the past 5 years, and each member having published articles in their field.

• The article is published in the Ukrainian Dental Almanac (Scopus Q4 + Category "B")—within 10–12 weeks;
• A new full-length Category "B" article—published in 5 weeks, credited as 1.0;
• The minimum publication requirement has been fully met: 3 publications credited in accordance with CMU Resolution No. 44;
• A set of documents for a one-time review with no comments;
• The defense took place on schedule—within four months of the initial request.

Marina emphasized that she thought she had everything covered. Three articles—three checkmarks. It turned out that one of them was worth only half. And that’s exactly what nearly derailed her defense.

"I thought that three publications meant just three articles. It turned out that wasn't the case. It's a good thing we figured it out before submitting the documents, rather than during the defense."