CSS Research Bulletin – Fall 2011
Each of the College of Social Sciences departments has been actively engaged in research and publicizing its results. The diverse focus and output reflects naturally the specializations of the individual departments and range from research in economics, political science, international relations and public administration to analysis of the current media. (Please see sections on the respective departments.)
Increasingly, the CSS faculty have brought Kazakhstani and Central Asian themes and issues to the worldwide English speaking audience. We have been conducting, supporting, and disseminating research on Kazakhstan and Central Asia that has significantly contributed to awareness and understanding among the world-wide international community of topical issues regarding this country and region from the perspective of Social Sciences. Not in the least, these developments have been strengthened by establishment in November 2010 of the Central Asian Studies Centre (CASC) at CSS /KIMEP.
Among the most noticeable undertakings of CSS was participation of the six-member academic delegation from KIMEP’s College of Social Sciences, Dr. Didar Kassymova, Dr. Zharmukhamed Zardykhan, Dr. Jiri Melich, Dr. John Couper, Dr. Alessandro Frigerio, and Dr. Azhar Baisakalova at a prestigious international conference at the University of Glasgow in May 2011. The University of Glasgow has recently become an important Master’s Program partner of the College of Social Sciences. CSS faculty presented a high-quality research papers related to one or several aspects of the current politics or economy of Kazakhstan and /or Central Asia and organized and conducted the entire panel on the ethnic issues in Kazakhstan. Worth mentioning is that among the members of the CSS delegation was a Political Science bachelor student Nikolay Shevchenko who co-presented his research paper and was involved in all other conference activities (an invaluable experience for our young colleague whose ambitions are to continue his Master’s and possibly Doctoral studies at KIMEP). The CSS delegation took every opportunity to cultivate personal and institutional relationships with the faculty of the hosting university. CSS/KIMEP and the Glasgow University are currently closely cooperating in the development of the joint (dual) degree Master’s program in Russian, Central and East European Studies. This academic year 2011-12, CSS is receiving three exchange students from GlasgowUniversity as part of the program, who have already been taking part in joint-research activities with the CSS faculty members.
