Areas for improving the legal mechanism of the emergence of employment relationships with scientific and pedagogical workers in Ukraine

The article analyzes the current state of legal regulation of the work of scientific and pedagogical workers in Ukraine and identifies promising directions for its reform. The specifics of the legal status of scientific and pedagogical workers as subjects ensuring the fulfillment of socially important tasks in the field of higher education are disclosed. Peculiarities of the legal mechanism for regulating labor relations with scientific and pedagogical workers were studied, the norms of the current labor and educational legislation were analyzed, and the main problems of their application in the context of the reform of the higher education system and European integration processes were identified. The areas of improvement of legal regulation are substantiated, in particular regarding qualification improvement and special pedagogical training of scientific and pedagogical workers, evaluation of their previous scientific and pedagogical activities, conclusion and terms of validity of the employment contract/contract, social and legal guarantees, as well as replacement of positions of scientific and pedagogical workers outside the competition. In the article, special attention is paid to the relationship between the norms of labor legislation and special educational legislation in the sphere of regulating the work of scientific and pedagogical workers, as well as the problems of legal certainty of their labor status. The need to harmonize national legislation with European standards in the field of academic work, to ensure the principles of academic freedom, stability of labor relations and an appropriate level of social protection was emphasized. Proposals for improving the regulatory and legal regulation of the work of scientific and pedagogical workers, taking into account the modern challenges of the development of higher education, digitalization of the educational process and increasing the requirements for the quality of scientific and pedagogical activities, have been formulated. Attention is focused on the need to introduce clear and transparent criteria for evaluating the results of scientific and pedagogical activities, which will contribute to the improvement of the quality of educational and scientific services. The practical significance of the obtained results lies in the possibility of their use in law-making activities, law-enforcement practice of institutions of higher education, as well as in further scientific studies of problems of labor law and educational legislation.