On 24 April, the President of Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences, Prof. Dr Jörg Wagner, and the Chairman of the University Council of KAZGUU University of Humanities and Law, Talgat Narikbayev, signed a Memorandum of Understanding, thus laying the foundation for future student and lecturer mobility as well as cooperation in research and teaching. KAZGUU University, founded in 1994, is a young university similar to Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences and, with around 5,000 students, is one of Kazakhstan's leading universities in the fields of administration and law.

For the Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences, there is potential for cooperation here, particularly in the administration and economics degree programmes, which have many points of overlap with KAZGUU University. There is also a Centre for German Law at KAZGUU University, where a DAAD lecturer works.

University President Wagner is a member of the official delegation that is visiting Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan this week under the leadership of the Thuringian Minister for Economic Affairs, Science and Digital Society, Wolfgang Tiefensee, and the Thuringian State Secretary for Economic Affairs, Higher Education and Digital Affairs, State Secretary Carsten Feller. The itinerary will take them from the Kazakh capital Astana via Almaty and the Uzbek capital Tashkent to Samarkand.

The visit to Maqsut Narikbayev KAZGUU University was accompanied by other members of the scientific delegation and was opened by Hovsep Voskanyan, Head of the Delegation of German Business in Central Asia (AHK), and the Chairman of the University Council of KAZGUU University, Talgat Narikbayev. The Director of the Centre for German Law, Professor Roman Melnik, and the DAAD lecturer, Dr Michael Wilding, were also present during the delegation's visit and spoke about their positive experiences of working with German professors and German universities.

The meeting was followed by talks with Nazarbayev University in Astana.

University President Wagner is still at the Goethe Institutes in Almaty and Tashkent this week, where he is presenting Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences and its study programmes to PASCH students as well as their parents and teachers. In Uzbekistan, further memoranda of understanding will be signed with Tashkent University of Information Technologies, Turin Polytechnic University in Tashkent and the Samarkand Institute of Economics and Service.