…says President Nazarbayev, knowing that he himself prematurely rejected his own one. To achieve that, first of all, all countrymen currently abroad are invited back home:

“We will create conditions for you on par with what you have abroad. Your education, energy and knowledge are needed at home.”

With the help of American experts, a comprehensive assessment of the areas in which Kazakhstan can compete internationally was carried out. The most promising sectors for R&D form an impressive list: nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, technologies for the hydrocarbon and mining sectors, nuclear and renewable energy technologies, as well as IT and space technologies. Phew!

Together with the move towards project-based financing (rather than the Soviet-inherited entitlement mentality for research institutions), it is hoped that Kazakhstan will be able to breed a new generation of world-class scientists. Finally, we also get an answer to last month’s question: Where will these new flagship institutions be built?

The Government is devoting similar efforts on developing hardware for scientists. Construction has begun on a new international university in Astana merging an educational facility with a world class research center. It would have four schools, IT, art and social sciences, engineering and technologies, and applied sciences. A similar university will be built near Almaty.

In addition to this, a new biotechnology center is being built in Astana led by Erlan Ramankulov, a U.S.-trained Kazakh microbiologist. Also, five national and ten university laboratories will be built within the next five years across the country.

So, a Nobel Prize for a Kazakhstan-based scientist. While I am all in favour of ambitious goals, this one seems like yet another presidential decree to put on the dusty “to-do shelf”. The kind of R&D that Kazakhstan really needs, namely production-oriented and pragmatic applied science, won’t lead to a Nobel Prize. Fortunately, those charged with educational and scientific reform seem to understand that:

Still, quite a few challenges for Kazakh science remain, not least the misbalance between pure research and applied science. Up to 45 percent of Kazakhstan’s research institutions deal purely with scientific research, while only six percent deal with designing new gadgets. The proportion of scientists versus designers versus workers who can put the products of research into production in Kazakhstan is also very different from the situation beyond its borders. There are 25 scientists and four designers per each experimental worker in Kazakhstan, while there are two designers and four experimental workers per each scientist internationally.