Only 15% of Volyn postgraduate students defend their dissertations, 5% of patented inventions find application, and there has been no graduation from doctoral studies with dissertation defense at higher education institutions in the region for 5 years in a row, the Western Information Corporation was told in the statistics department in Volyn region. \n \nIn the postgraduate and doctoral programs of two higher education institutions of Volyn – Lesya Ukrainka Volyn State University and Lutsk State Technical University – fewer and fewer people have been enrolling in recent years, and even fewer complete their studies with a dissertation defense. According to the regional statistics department, the graduation from postgraduate studies with dissertation defense is only 15% of the total number of persons who completed it in 2004 (11 persons), whereas back in 2000 it was half (40 persons). \n \nTwenty-one persons hold the higher academic titles of academician and corresponding member, and 334 are professors and associate professors. The share of highly qualified scientists of Volyn in the nationwide total is small, and in recent years has been about 1%. This is at the level of the neighboring Rivne and Zhytomyr regions, but less than in Ternopil region (up to 2%). \n \nThe situation in the sphere of scientific activity is also discouraging. Scientific research and development in the region is carried out by 16 organizations employing 678 persons, among whom only 15 are highly qualified specialists (1 doctor and 14 candidates of sciences). Innovators of the region received 28 patents for inventions from the State Department of Intellectual Property last year. However, over the past 5 years only 5% of the patented inventions of Volyn residents have found application \n