[1] The schools are named after Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev, former president of Kazakhstan, who has promoted the idea as a means of developing the intellectual life of the country.

[2] The program was initially set up with the assistance of faculty members from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

[3] Subsequently, Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools partnered with the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education on curriculum development; Cambridge Assessment on design of the assessment system; CiTO, Netherlands on the testing and measurement; and Johns Hopkins University on working with talented youth.

Previous keynote speakers have included Colleen McLaughlin, Patrick Griffin, Fred Genesee, William Schmidt, Richard Phelps, Miho Taguma, David Bridges, and John Elliott.

The Nazarbayev network has been criticized for its concentration on only the best and brightest at the expense of the bulk of the rest of the student population.