ABSTRACT Research misconduct has become an increasing concern in higher education systems worldwide, yet little is known about how it manifests in post‐Soviet contexts. This study examines the drivers of research misconduct in Kazakhstan's higher education system using Davis's (2003) multi‐level framework. The analysis draws on qualitative semi‐structured interviews with 19 faculty members from universities across Kazakhstan representing different disciplines, institutional types and career stages. The findings confirm the relevance of commonly identified drivers of research misconduct, including publication pressures, weak institutional oversight and limited research capacity. At the same time, the study shows how these drivers operate within a research system characterised by institutional transition and epistemic regime hybridity. Kazakhstan's academic environment reflects the coexistence of Soviet‐inherited academic traditions, globally oriented research evaluation systems and emerging national knowledge agendas. The study contributes to research integrity scholarship by demonstrating how hybrid institutional environments shape the drivers and governance of research misconduct in transitional higher education systems.

Prior research has demonstrated that agency plays a key role in doctoral student socialisation. While several prior studies have pointed to the lack of attention to the agency of international doctoral students, empirical explorations of the experiences of international doctoral students rarely explore the students' socialisation from the agency perspective. This paper uses data from interviews with funded international doctoral students from Kazakhstan to analyse factors, which influence agency of international doctoral students. The findings reveal that clarity of career goals is a critical individual factor enabling agency, while contextual factors such as supervisory support, peer relationships, funding, cultural divide, responsibilities associated with Bolashak scholarship, and personal circumstances significantly shape students' capacity to exercise agency. Unique to this study is the emphasis on the structural pressures imposed by the Bolashak scholarship, which both enable and constrain students' agency through its rigorous requirements and expectations. Additionally, the study highlights the importance of mentorship from faculty with home-country experience in fostering agency. Based on the findings from the analysis, several recommendations for future research and practice are suggested on providing better support for international doctoral students.

This qualitative study aims to examine academic integrity practices in Kazakhstan’s PhD programs following the recent introduction of a publication requirement. By exploring the experiences of doctoral students navigating this requirement and faculty supervising them, the study seeks to identify common academic integrity violations, the factors contributing to misconduct, and the challenges in ensuring ethical research and publication practices. By situating these findings within the unique context of Kazakhstan’s doctoral education, the study reconsiders conventional understandings of misconduct and offers policy recommendations to strengthen academic integrity in similar environments shaped by high-stakes publication requirements.

This paper explores the ambivalent role of informal networks in shaping academic careers as well as academic and research integrity in Kazakhstan. Drawing on 23 in-depth interviews with senior university leaders, the study examines how informal networks both facilitate scholarly work and undermine merit-based governance. Building on Ledeneva’s typology of informal networks, the paper identifies four coexisting forms—solidarity, domination, redistribution, and market-oriented networks—and analyzes how each shapes hiring, promotion, authorship, funding allocation, and research evaluation. Although these networks often compensate for institutional gaps arising from rapid internationalization and metric-driven reforms, they also legitimize practices such as favoritism, guest authorship, citation manipulation, and informal interference in evaluation processes. The findings challenge individualistic understandings of academic misconduct by showing that questionable practices are embedded in relational obligations, hierarchical dependencies, and structural incentives. The paper concludes by discussing implications for academic integrity policies and argues for context-sensitive approaches that recognize the persistence and ambivalence of informal networks rather than seeking to eliminate them.

This study explores the establishment of the Institutional Research Ethics Committee (IREC) at an accelerated university in Kazakhstan, focusing on the experiences of key stakeholders. Using a qualitative case study research design, data were collected through documents analysis, observations and 32 interviews with faculty and administrative staff involved in the IREC’s creation and analyzed thematically. Findings reveal that the IREC’s development unfolded in three distinct stages, each shaped by stakeholder roles, institutional needs, and external influences. Key challenges included limited policy infrastructure and faculty members’ varying levels of familiarity with ethical research practices. The study highlights the critical role of stakeholder engagement and contextual adaptation in developing research ethics frameworks in non-Western academic settings. These insights contribute to the broader discourse on internationalization of research ethics and building institutional capacity for ethical oversight in emerging academic contexts and not only.

Abstract Girls continue to complete education at lower rates than their male peers in Tajikistan. Studies have pointed to a variety of factors at the family, community, and national levels. In this chapter, we will explore the influence of marriage expectations on girls’ educational attainment in Tajikistan. The first author conducted interviews with close to 20 women in Tajikistan. The analysis found that marriage expectations significantly influence girls’ educational attainment, contributing to the persistently lower completion rates among females compared to their male counterparts. This underscores the need to address societal expectations surrounding marriage to promote greater educational opportunities for girls in Tajikistan.

Abstract This paper summarizes the results of a study that explored the experiences of female leaders in Central Asian academia using empirical data from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The study uses a comprehensive theoretical framework combining Human Capital, Gender Role, Gendered Organization, Professionalization, and Intersectionality perspectives, derived from prior research on the topic. It relies on qualitative phenomenological case study design analyzing data from 30 semi-structured interviews with women leaders from the two countries. The study reveals the relevance of Institutional theory to complement the theoretical framework arising from prior research. Implications of the results of the study are discussed in terms of their relevance for global research on the topic and for domestic policies aimed at promoting the representation and advancement of women in the labor force and leadership in particular.

This article analyses the current higher education equity policy in Kazakhstan. It provides a statistical overview of the existing situation with equity in higher education. It then applies the policy triangle framework to a set of policy documents, secondary statistical data and information from the websites of official agencies responsible for equity initiatives to analyse the actors, context, content and process of the existing equity policy. Finally, it identifies a set of measures, which can be taken to ensure true commitment to achieving equity goals in higher education in Kazakhstan.

Studies on doctoral socialization rarely explore the unique nature of social networks important for socialization of international students. This study fills the gap in existing research by exploring social networks of statefunded doctoral students from Kazakhstan. Drawing on the results of indepth online interviews the study concludes that the obligation to return to their home country makes the student oriented to the domestic job market, pushes them to be more active in preparation to the market and encourages them to strategically engage not only in the host-country but also in home-country social networks. The study concludes that doctoral training programs in host countries should recognize the external academic market orientation of some international doctoral students and should take more active steps in supporting their engagement with relevant social networks from home, while future research should take into consideration the importance of home country players in international doctoral student socialization.

Abstract This chapter conducts a comparative analysis of gender equality policies across the five Central Asian countries, focusing on gender equality in education and other spheres by synthesising insights from academic and grey literature. The chapter begins by outlining the historical policy landscape, examining how Soviet gender equality policies impacted women in Muslim Central Asia. It then analyses how the intricate interplay of the Soviet legacy, globalisation, neoliberalism, and nationalist discourses influence gender equality policies and identities. Subsequently, it explores post-independencegender equality frameworks and policies, considering key actors, international gender equality commitments, and policy structures within each Central Asian nation. Lastly, the chapter examines gender social norms viewed as the primary obstacle hindering the effectiveness of gender equality policies and endeavours in the region.

Abstract This paper explores the experiences of women in education in the Central Asian country of Turkmenistan. The exploration is based on the review of the relevant policies, reports, statistics, and scholarly research, as well as on the data from written accounts of women who had experiences in the education system of the country. We first provide a quick overview of the situation with gender equality generally and in education more specifically during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. We then use data from the written accounts to explore in greater detail the unique experiences of women in education and the way the experiences are shaped by a variety of cultural and societal beliefs. The primary criteria of eligibility for participation in the written accounts was being a woman holding at least a certificate of completion of secondary education in Turkmenistan. The common themes emerging from the participants’ insights included the various challenges faced by women in education, the pervasive family influence, and the irreconcilable differentiation between what is considered masculine and feminine behaviors. In addition, we revealed the women’s awareness about their agency and the importance of empowerment.

Abstract This edited volume is devoted to a comparative analysis of gender equality in Central Asia. The region is comprised of five post-Soviet countries—Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, which became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The growing pressure to 'publish or perish', experienced by academia around the world, has pushed an increasing number of individual graduate programmes and universities, as well as entire higher education systems, to introduce a publication requirement as a prerequisite for the conferral of doctoral degrees. One example of the implementation of the requirement at the country level is Kazakhstan. This paper sheds light on the experience with publication requirement policies implemented at the country level by using bibliometric data from Scopus to statistically explore the effects of Ph.D. publication requirement policy on publication productivity trends in Kazakhstan. The findings reveal that the policy has increased the number of publications but has lowered the impact of research. The study suggests that measures focused on methodological training and improving the research capacity of future scholars may be more effective in strengthening the research competitiveness of countries than outcome-focused policies.

Increasingly, there has been a notable lack of female representation in math-intensive STEM fields, such as engineering, geosciences, mathematics, computer science, and physics. This issue persists despite the growing number of women graduating in STEM disciplines. Enhancing the number of women who complete their education and work in STEM sectors is a critical task. To address this issue effectively, it is crucial to understand the factors responsible for the underrepresentation of women, both among STEM students and within the workforce. This qualitative study explores the experiences of female undergraduate students enrolled in math-intensive STEM programs at universities to understand the factors contributing to the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields within the context of Kazakhstan. The analysis based on 29 interviews highlights a range of personal, distal, and proximal factors that may significantly influence the retention of women in math-intensive STEM fields. Furthermore, this article offers several recommendations to promote and support women’s involvement in STEM.