As Eurasia is increasingly defined by an integrated network of ties and partnerships taking shape throughout the continent, it is the humanitarian dimension of this interstate cooperation that is coming into focus. Adil Kaukenov explores the cultural, scientific, and educational aspects of Eurasia’s emerging connectivity, highlighting their key role in forging links across the region.
Cooperation in the spheres of culture, science, and education is no longer merely a “soft” adjunct to high politics and economics. Amid the rapid transformation of the global system, the humanitarian dimension is becoming one of the key factors underpinning the stability of international relations. Geopolitical turbulence, the crisis of previous models of globalisation, sanctions pressure, market fragmentation, and growing mistrust between various centres of power are objectively pushing the states of Greater Eurasia towards the search for new forms of cooperation.
However, the long-term sustainability of any integration project is determined not only by transport corridors, trade, energy, or security. These areas are undoubtedly important. Yet without people who understand one another’s languages, cultures, historical memory, and strategic logic, no Eurasian project can be truly durable.
Today, the humanitarian foundation of Greater Eurasia already possesses quite tangible contours. Central Asia is making serious efforts to form its own independent educational hub.
Naturally, this is an extremely difficult task, as educational competition in the modern world is global in nature. One solution, therefore, lies in cooperation with internationally recognised educational centres and their “localisation”.
For example, Kazakhstan has developed a notable network of branches of Russian universities. These include Lomonosov Moscow State University, National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, Dmitry Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia, Chelyabinsk State University, Moscow Aviation Institute, Saint Petersburg University of the Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as MGIMO University, which joined this infrastructure in 2025. This demonstrates that Russian higher education retains an important institutional foothold in Kazakhstan and remains one of the key channels of humanitarian interaction.
Chinese educational presence in Kazakhstan is developing no less actively and is now far from being limited merely to Confucius Institutes. Branches and educational structures of Chinese universities have been established, including my alma mater, Beijing Language and Culture University, and City University of Hong Kong; vocational and technical projects in the format of “Luban Workshops”; joint laboratories in AI, remote sensing, medicine, water resources, and robotics; as well as double-degree programmes and academic mobility initiatives.
At Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, a joint Kazakh-Chinese laboratory, “Remote Sensing Technology and Applications”, has been opened, intended to serve as a centre for monitoring the environmental problems of Central Asia—water scarcity, drought, land degradation, and climate risks.
In 2025, the National Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan signed a memorandum with Zhejiang University of Technology on the establishment of an International Joint Laboratory for Spatio-Temporal Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development. The declared areas of work include AI, remote sensing, forecasting, water resource management, and early warning systems.
In the sphere of economics and governance, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics and Almaty Management University signed a cooperation agreement providing for the joint training of Master’s students in international trade and international law. A “1+1” double-degree programme is being created, aimed at training highly qualified specialists who simultaneously understand trade and legal issues and possess a strong grasp of the specificities of China and the countries of Central Asia. This should contribute to more development of Chinese-Central Asian cooperation in the future.
There is also the medical sphere: the Medical School of Shenzhen University and the National Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan agreed to establish the Shenzhen—Almaty Joint Laboratory for Advanced Medical Science, with one branch based at the National Academy of Sciences in Almaty and the second at Shenzhen University. Research grants of 750,000 yuan each were announced for the period 2024–2026.
Naturally, new fields such as low-altitude aviation and robotics are also generating interest: Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and the Chinese company Yuan Zhen are cooperating on unmanned aerial vehicles; additionally, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and Jiangsu Huibo Robotics Technology have established the Digital Technologies and Robotics International Institute.
These developments clearly demonstrate that humanitarian cooperation in Eurasia has long ceased to be confined to language and culture in the narrow sense. It is moving into the spheres of technology, engineering, sustainable development, and applied science.
In other words, the space of science, culture, and education in Greater Eurasia already exists not merely at the level of declarations. It manifests itself in university agreements, academic mobility, joint research projects, youth forums, cultural programmes, translation schools, language-study centres, and emerging expert networks.
Under these conditions, the task of Greater Eurasia is the formation of a new civilisational macro-region. In this process, humanitarian infrastructure acquires particular importance: universities, research centres, cultural institutions, expert platforms, and a new generation of specialists capable of thinking beyond the logic of old dividing lines.
For the countries of Central Asia, this issue is strategic in nature. The region occupies a unique intersection of the interests of Russia, China, the Islamic world, South Asia, Europe, and the West. And today, specifically, Central Asia has an opportunity to become the intellectual and humanitarian hub of Greater Eurasia.
For example, when discussing China’s Belt and Road Initiative, it is important to note that it is not merely about infrastructure, railways, pipelines, and trade routes. It is also a space of meanings, trust, cultural translation, and mutual understanding. If transport corridors connect markets, then education, science, and culture connect societies.
The surge in scientific and technological programmes, joint laboratories, university alliances, youth exchanges, double-degree programmes, summer schools, and joint Olympiads that we are witnessing today constitutes precisely the foundation for the possible creation of Eurasia’s technological and scientific architecture.
This is especially evident in such fields as artificial intelligence, logistics, the digital economy, transport systems, energy, agriculture, water resources, and applied engineering sciences. For Central Asia, these areas possess direct practical significance, since the region faces the necessity of modernising infrastructure, diversifying the economy, training new personnel, and adapting to a rapidly changing technological environment—all of which can only be achieved through close cooperation.
Naturally, not everything is so smooth—there is inevitable competition between universities and, more broadly, between educational models. Yet the current situation demands a transition from competition between humanitarian models to their harmonisation. Greater Eurasia cannot be built on the principle of the exclusivity of a single centre. Its sustainability is possible only through the creation of a multi-level space of cooperation in which Russia, China, and the countries of Central Asia act not as rivals competing for educational flows, but as co-authors of a new Eurasian humanitarian architecture.
In this context, the systematic development of Sinology under new conditions acquires particular importance. Today, we are witnessing unprecedented growth in interest in China across virtually all countries of the region. At the same time, however, it is becoming obvious that the mere study of the Chinese language is no longer sufficient.
What is needed are not generalists, but specialists in specific narrow fields who are capable of meeting demand across numerous areas of cooperation. In other words, the Sinologist is no longer an exotic specialist explaining the customs of “the other”, but a concrete practitioner. Consequently, Sinology is gradually transforming from a narrow academic discipline into an important element of strategic expertise.
This is especially visible in Central Asia, where China is becoming one of the key economic partners, investors, and infrastructure actors. Accordingly, there is an acute need for sector-specific schools of expertise, scientific centres, translation traditions, research programmes, and indigenous analytical personnel.
The formation of independent scientific and analytical platforms is becoming a matter not only of academic development, but also of intellectual sovereignty. In this sense, forums of Sinologists, Eurasian research centres, network universities, youth scientific programmes, and academic exchanges possess far greater significance than might appear at first glance. These are elements of the region’s future humanitarian architecture.
Young people may play a particularly important role here. It is precisely the new generation of Eurasian researchers, students, lecturers, translators, and experts that will determine the architecture of the region over the coming decades. Today, it is critically important to create conditions for horizontal ties between young specialists from Russia, China, and the countries of Central Asia.
Today, Eurasia is experiencing a historical moment. Whether the states of the region succeed in forming their own humanitarian space will determine not only the success of integration processes, but also the region’s ability to preserve its agency amid the formation of a new world order.
Greater Eurasia will be sustainable only if it becomes not merely a space of transit, resources, and markets, but a space of knowledge, culture, mutual respect, and a shared future. That is why culture, science, and education must be regarded not as secondary directions, but as the strategic foundation of Eurasian integration.
