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Central Asia

Research

The BMBF funds research cooperation with Central Asia for the joint development of solutions to global challenges.

Opportunities

  • We support higher education and research institutions in their cooperation with Central Asia in asserting German research interests as well as with a view to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
  • The Central Asian Sustainable Innovation Bureau (CASIB) is located in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and builds networks between German and Central Asian research players.
  • In order to further promote the energy transition, the BMBF supports pilot projects on the development of competitive technologies for green hydrogen in cooperation with international research institutions.
  • On the basis of a bilateral innovation partnership with Uzbekistan, German and Uzbek scientists are working together on sustainable urban and rural development, agriculture, building technologies and climate and environmental science.

Basis of cooperation

Science cooperation between Germany and the countries in Central Asia is based on the intergovernmental agreement on scientific and technological cooperation (STC) from 1987. Additional bilateral STC agreements were signed with Kazakhstan in 1995 and Uzbekistan in 1998. The STC agreement with Mongolia was signed in 2003.

The agreements were amended by numerous declarations of intent, most recently in 2023 on intensifying the innovation partnership and research cooperation between the BMBF and the partners ministries in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

The overarching framework for cooperation is provided by the EU’s Central Asia strategy “New Opportunities for a Stronger Partnership”, to which Germany was a key contributor and which was revised in 2019, the EU’s Global Gateway initiative of 2021 and the German Government's Internationalization Strategy for science and research of 2017. In addition, in 2020 the Federal Foreign Office launched the Green Central Asia initiative which involves Germany's research organizations.

In their coalition agreement for the 20th legislative period (2021-2025), SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and FDP agreed objectives on the promotion of climate and development partnerships which we implement systematically by further expanding research cooperation on topics such as sustainability, climate research and mitigation, green hydrogen, biodiversity and bioeconomy.

Key areas of cooperation

The unique natural characteristics in Central Asia as well as major growth in quality of research in the region combine to offer a wide range of starting points and thematic fields for joint research

Cooperation aims at addressing regional demands, identifying potential to realize the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and strengthening resilience of regions particularly concerned by climate change by means of transfer of knowledge. At the same time, local research capacities are enhanced and access to globally unique fields of research is gained. We thus fulfil a permanent and growing demand among the German research community.

The thematic focuses of collaboration with the countries of Central Asia are closely based on the priorities of the EU’s new Central Asia strategy. These include:

  • land management and agriculture
  • climate/environment research and adaptation to climate change
  • water research and water management
  • natural hazards and civil protection
  • sustainable urban development
  • biodiversity research
  • bioeconomy research
  • secure, clean and efficient energy
  • health

Research funding: the context

The central element of our funding strategy for Central Asia is the Framework call for the funding of projects in research and innovation cooperation with Eastern Partnership countries and Central Asia. This document provides a reliable framework in which to announce specific, demand-based funding calls (2023 to 2033).

Funding of sustainable cross-country partnerships

The first funding call under the framework announcement aims at Measures to establish sustainable joint partner structures and supports the establishment and expansion of institutionalized and sustainable cross-country partnerships and the strengthening of new research structures and networks, also in Central Asia.

Research for development

The funding call Partnerships for sustainable solutions with countries in the South Caucasus and Central Asia was published in 2024. It enables German and Central Asian partners to jointly work on research and development topics. The priorities are energy efficiency, water, climate and environment, as well as biodiversity research and health research. The projects are planned to start in 2025.

Bilateral cooperation

In 2020, we published a bilateral funding call with Uzbekistan which focused on the following research topics: urban and rural development, climate and environmental sciences, sustainable agriculture and energy as well as modern building technologies. 10 projects were selected. The overall volume of the BMBF’s funding for this purpose is around €2 million.

CLIENT II “International partnerships for sustainable innovations”

In the context of the BMBF initiative CLIENT II, a total of 14 research projects with Central Asian countries were granted funding with a total volume of about €17 million between 2017 and 2021. The focus is on the development of application-oriented solutions in the research fields land and water management, natural hazards, climate protection/energy efficiency, adaptation to climate change and raw materials efficiency.

CASIB

To support the German commitment in Central Asia, we fund the Central Asian Sustainable Innovation Bureau (CASIB) located in Almaty, Kazakhstan. By being present in the region, CASIB supports the regional networking of sustainability projects which receive BMBF funding and strengthens contacts as well as knowledge and technology transfer.

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