Over the last couple of decades, higher education has undergone significant changes as a result of intensive globalization processes making the HE sector global, national and local at the same time (Marginson and Rhodes, 2022). The wave of neoliberal globalization associated with marketization and competition in different areas has also influenced higher education policies. One of the such policies in the recent decade has been a quest for ‘world-class university’ (WCU) and/or ‘global research university’ (GRU) among nations and their universities (Liu et al, 2011). With the emphasised importance of knowledge economy, the term ‘world-class university’ has gained the attention of various stakeholders in the higher education systems worldwide as these universities are thought to play a key role “in creating and disseminating knowledge, educating a highly skilled workforce for technological and intellectual leadership, and serving the needs of society” for their nation’s ability to compete in the global arena (Wang et al, 2012, p.9).

Kazakhstan is no exception and in 2010 established Nazarbayev University (NU) to be ‘a national standard of higher education for the rest of the country’ (Nazarbayev, 2010), to be a leader in higher education reform and modernisation in Kazakhstan and also to ‘contribute to the establishment of Astana as an international knowledge and innovation hub’ (nu.edu.kz). Unlike the rest of the HEIs, NU has been given a special status of an autonomous organisation of education which grants the university institutional autonomy and legislative independence from the bureaucratic system of the Ministry of Education and Science (MoES). This paper, based on the PhD thesis done in 2016-2019, aims to understand Kazakhstan’s quest for a world-class university with a focus on an interplay between global aspirations, national policies, and local context. It addresses the overarching questions of what the tensions and connections are between global, national, and local forces in Kazakhstan’s attempts to build a world-class university. Through qualitative case study design with semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis, the author specifically explores the extent to which global practices advocated at a western-type elite university can be integrated within the setting of the local public universities as part of the bold policy reforms in the national HE sector. By doing so, the paper also explores the responses of the public universities on the prioritized emphasis on a single university made by the government.

Theoretically, this study uses Marginson and Rhoades’ (2002) glonacal agency heuristic for its relevance in explaining the dynamic of global, national and local dimensions in which HE is said to exist. Moreover, the approach is helpful in the way to interpret “the intersections, interactions, mutual determinations of these levels (global, national, and local) and domains (organizational agencies and the agency of collectivities)” (p.289). Hence, this approach is seen as a tool to understand and uncover how global, national and local forces interact where NU is regarded as a product of the national government to become globally visible while reforming and modernizing the local HE and more importantly, the public institutions' response to internationalizing policy of the government.

To answer the research question posed, qualitative semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis were employed. A total of 29 interviews were conducted with key administration and academic staff responsible for research and international activities including senior members of staff in charge of strategic development at 3 public universities, NU and MoES. The three universities were selected from the list of 33 universities that have had a collaborative training project with the NU in 2014-2016. State universities have always been a bedrock of the higher education system in Kazakhstan, and, being under the centralised governance of the Ministry of Education and Science, have a high level of accountability, and are expected to follow the governmental line. Considering an emphasised importance of the NU by the government in policy documents, these universities are ‘tasked’ to ‘learn’ from NU’s experience (Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2016). Selected public universities are located in three regions of Kazakhstan: one in East Kazakhstan, the second in Central Kazakhstan, and the third in North-East Kazakhstan.

While there is this effort and grand national plans, at this stage the extent of interaction is limited due to several factors and issues. The major one is that NU and public institutions function in two different systems, with different backgrounds and resources, principles of work and missions, which makes it more than a little challenging for all three parties – state, NU and public universities – to effectively construct procedures for the one shared goal of advancing the HE system in Kazakhstan. There is not much-established cooperation between Nazarbayev University and other institutions and limited vision and understanding between all parties of how Nazarbayev University’s experience could help to reform the entire system. This puts the idea of developing a world-class research university in the context of Kazakhstan in doubt due to the limited research background and potential of the national HE system. Though the intention seems reasonable, skepticism prevails as to whether one university can have any effect on the system overall, especially due to the fact that at the current HE development state the rest of the system remains underfunded. Therefore, at this stage of HE development, it is suggested that Kazakhstan should focus on a comprehensive systemic approach rather than on a single institution. Furthermore, in discussing the interplay between the global, national and local, my argument is that the Soviet legacy in Kazakhstan and the insufficiently internationalised level of its higher education system might explain existing tensions and limited dynamics between global and local forces. In any case, for global practices typical of globally-oriented institutions like NU to be translated to the rest of the sector, state-coordinated actions would potentially bring more efficiency, especially in centrally-governed education systems where institutional autonomy has yet to come to fruition.

Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2016). State Program of Education and Science Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2016-2019, https://tengrinews.kz/zakon/prezident_respubliki_kazahstan/konstitutsionnyiy_stroy_i_osnovyi_gosudarstvennogo_upravleniya/id-U1600000205/. Marginson, S. and Rhoades, G. (2002). Beyond national states, markets, and systems of higher education: A glonacal agency heuristic. Higher Education, 43(3), 281-309. NU (n.d). Official website of Nazarbayev University, www.nu.edu.kz/en NU, (2013). Nazarbayev University Strategy 2013 – 2020. https://nu.edu.kz/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/NU_strategy_-final-1.pdf Wang, Q. Cheng Y. and Liu, N.C. (Eds.). (2012). Building world-class universities: different approaches to a shared goal. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.