A delegation from JSC Kazatomprom visited Kozybayev University

Kazatomprom is Kazakhstan’s national atomic company and the world leader in natural uranium production. Cooperation with such a global enterprise opens broad prospects for Kozybayev University.

Earlier, the university leadership and representatives of our strategic partner, the University of Arizona, visited JSC Kazatomprom and discussed the development of cooperation in science, technology, and personnel training. This visit to Kozybayev University was a return visit. The guests toured the Kozybayev Labs research laboratories: “Agrochemical Analytics,” “Water Quality Assessment,” “Microbiology,” and “Environmental Toxicology and Biodiversity.” Equipment worth 938 million tenge for these laboratories was purchased under a successfully funded targeted program project. It has no equivalent in the region. The delegation also visited the laboratories of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, as well as the production complex of the LLP “Scientific and Technological Water Center” based at our university.

During the meeting with the leadership and scientists of Kozybayev University, plans for scientific cooperation were discussed. University of Arizona researcher Shamil Sayev presented joint developments in the use of sulfur polymer adsorbents for the selective extraction of uranium, as well as associated rare and rare-earth metals. These topics may become an important point of scientific collaboration with Kazatomprom. Scientists from Kozybayev University also presented their research areas in water resources, plastics production, and chemical ecology.

“We are open to cooperation and propose working in a consortium. At the same time, we are a business, a production company that does not engage in ‘science for the sake of science.’ For us, research is important when it can be implemented and produce both qualitative and economic outcomes. As a national company, our task is to contribute to the national fund, and we pursue science with this goal as well,” said Armanbek Omirgali, Head of the Department of Science and Rare Earth Materials at JSC Kazatomprom.

Overall, from 2021 to 2025, the volume of R&D funding at the university increased more than tenfold, while the share of science in gross income rose from 2.8% to 14.5%. In 2025, 12 research projects were implemented with a total budget of 1,310.424 million tenge, and applications were submitted for another 19 projects worth more than 2 billion tenge. In the field of commercialization, together with regional enterprises, applications totaling 1.7 billion tenge were submitted, of which 412 million tenge came from private investment. The main objective is the development of regional clusters in the agro-industrial sector, food security, and water supply.

Ahead of us lie joint research projects with JSC Kazatomprom as well. Interaction between universities and industrial partners is shaping a new model of cooperation that unites science, education, and high-tech industry. Such a partnership creates additional opportunities for the development of advanced research, the training of world-class specialists, and the integration of Kazakhstan’s science into the global scientific and technological space.