Centre for Euro-Asian Studies: forming international academic partnerships

Paving the way to COP 29

Dr Irina Heim, Deputy Director of the CEAS, was invited to the USST in December 2023. During her visit, she delivered lectures on innovation management, including the context of innovation, effective innovation management in the age of change, innovation networks and building innovative organisation. Dr Anlan Chen supported Dr Heim in the development of the lecture materials.

The visit also offered an opportunity to gain knowledge for research activities on economic transformation and energy, two of the six focuses within the CEAS. Dr Heim worked on these broad research themes alongside Professor Yelena Kalyuzhnova, the Director of the CEAS, and PhD student Maria Richert, collaborating on the recent research on Chinese investments in technology-intensive and natural resource-rich global regions and countries.

This research laid the foundation for future research on advancing energy transition in natural resource-rich geographies in preparation for the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 29), which will take place in Azerbaijan in November 2024.

Making Higher Education international

On January 25 2024, the CEAS also welcomed a delegation led by Nurlan Sergaliyev, Rector of WKU. The purpose of the visit was to discuss potential collaborations in research and education, with WKU recognised as one of the top 10 universities in the region.

Rector Sergaliyev highlighted the critical role of internationalising higher education to align with the Kazakhstan government's 2023-2029 Concept for Higher Education and Science Development, a key policy of which is to target an international student representation of up to 10% of the total student body by 2029.

With Kazakhstan's universities undergoing a period of significant transformation, Rector Sergaliyev also proposed further collaborative initiatives in research and teaching between the University of Reading and WKU, building on the successes of the joint research between the two institutions that began in 2023. The most notable of these joint research projects focuses on the transition to a circular economy, with Dr Lilya Mergaliyeva joining the CEAS as a visiting researcher from KTU's faculty.

This WKU visit was part of a broader delegation, overseen by Saysat Nurbek, Kazakhstan's Minister of Science and Higher Education. He spoke at the British Educational Training and Technology Show in London on 24 January 2024, covering the topic 'Navigating the Transformative Wave: the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Higher Education'.