Science and technology in Kazakhstan

Apart from national security and political stability, it focuses on growth based on an open-market economy with a high level of foreign investment, as well as on health, education, energy, transport, communication, infrastructure and professional training.

Kazakhstan's economic priorities to 2020 were agriculture, mining and metallurgical complexes, the energy sector, oil and gas, engineering, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and chemicals and petrochemicals.

When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, the Kazakh government reacted by stepping up its involvement in the economy, even though it had created a wealth fund, Samruk−Kazyna, the same year to further the privatization of state-controlled businesses.

[5] Samruk−Kazyna resulted from the 2008 merger of two joint stock companies, the Kazakhstan Holding for the Management of State Assets (Samruk) and the Sustainable Development Fund (Kazyna).

Samruk−Kazyna is charged with modernizing and diversifying the Kazakh economy by attracting investment to priority economic sectors, fostering regional development and strengthening inter-industry and inter-regional links.

More than half (54%) of processed products were exported to Belarus and the Russian Federation in 2013, compared to 44% prior to the adoption of the Customs Union in In December 2012, President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced the Kazakhstan 2050 Strategy with the slogan ‘Strong Business, Strong State.’ This pragmatic strategy proposes sweeping socio-economic and political reforms to hoist Kazakhstan among the top 30 economies by 2050.

These are the standards for our entrance into the ranks of the 30 most developed nations.’[1][6] Promising to explain the strategy's goals to the population in order to ensure public support, the president stressed that ‘the well-being of ordinary citizens should serve as the most important indicator of our progress.’ At the institutional level, he pledged to create an atmosphere of fair competition, justice and rule of law and to ‘shape and implement new counter-corruption strategies.’ Promising local governments more autonomy, he recalled that ‘they must be accountable to the public.’ He pledged to introduce principles of meritocracy into human resources policy for state-owned enterprises and companies.

In order to smooth the transition to a knowledge economy, there will be a reform of laws related to venture capital, intellectual property protection, support for research and innovation and commercialization of scientific results.

Multinational companies working in major oil and gas, mining and smelting sectors will be encouraged to create industries to source required products and services.

To enable Kazakhstan to enter the world market of geological exploration, the country intends to increase the efficiency of traditional extractive sectors such as oil and gas.

[1][6] During subsequent five-year plans to 2050, new industries will be established in fields such as mobile, multi-media, nano- and space technologies, robotics, genetic engineering and alternative energy.

Food processing enterprises will be developed with an eye to turning the country into a major regional exporter of beef, dairy and other agricultural products.

The Kazakhstan 2050 Strategy fixes a target of halving the share of energy revenue in GDP and ensuring that non-resource goods represent 70% of exports by 2050.

‘The Western Europe–Western China corridor is nearly completed and a railway line is being built to Turkmenistan and Iran to gain access for goods to ports in the Gulf,’ the president said.

Endowed with the world's biggest uranium reserves, Kazakhstan also plans to set up nuclear power plants to satisfy the country's growing energy needs.

In order to ensure coherence, independence and transparency in the management of projects and programmes involving science, technology and innovation, the government created the National Centre for State Scientific and Technical Expertise in July 2011.

Within the same programme, the Ministry of Industry and New Technologies has developed an Inter-industry Plan to stimulate innovation through the provision of grants, engineering services, business incubators and so on.

It carries out foresight exercises and planning, monitors programmes, maintains a database on innovation projects and their commercialization, manages relevant infrastructure and co-operates with international bodies to obtain information, education and funding.

[8] In 2006, the government set up the Science Fund within the State Programme for Scientific Development 2007−2012, in order to encourage market-oriented research by fostering collaboration with private investors.

The fund provides grants and loans for projects in applied research in priority areas for investment, as identified by the government's High Scientific Technology Committee, which is headed by the prime minister.

Kazakhstan and the other four republics are also members of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Programme, which also includes Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Mongolia and Pakistan.

The landlocked Central Asian republics are conscious of the need to co-operate in order to maintain and develop their transport networks and energy, communication and irrigation systems.

Only Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan border the Caspian Sea and none of the republics has direct access to an ocean, complicating the transportation of hydrocarbons, in particular, to world markets.

As co-operation among the member states in science and technology is already considerable and well-codified in legal texts, the Eurasian Economic Union is expected to have a limited additional impact on co-operation among public laboratories or academia but it may encourage business ties and scientific mobility, since it includes provision for the free circulation of labour and unified patent regulations.

At the time, Vladimir Debabov, Scientific Director of the Genetika State Research Institute for Genetics and the Selection of Industrial Micro-organisms in the Russian Federation, stressed the paramount importance of developing bio-industry.

The first few approved projects focused on supercomputers, space technologies, medicine, petroleum recycling, nanotechnologies and the ecological use of natural resources.

The focus of this research project is on three societal challenges considered as being of mutual interest to both the European Union and Central Asia, namely: climate change, energy and health.

IncoNet CA builds on the experience of earlier projects which involved other regions, such as Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and the Western Balkans.

It involves a consortium of partner institutions from Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Portugal, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.

[8] Start-ups at icoStartup.kz have access to research labs shared by multinational corporations such as IBM (USA) and the British technology companies IntelliSense and Metalysis.