The workshop was supported by the State Committee for Coordination of Science and Technology Development under the Cabinet of Ministers of Uzbekistan and took place in their venue in Tashkent. The cooperation is financially supported by the Volkswagen Foundation. About 40 participants from academia, public administration and international organisations joined the event. After taking office in December 2016, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev undertakes new efforts to lead science and higher education in the country closer to Western standards. "We experience a notable revitalization of interest on the Uzbek side to further strengthen the domestic research structures. The Volkswagen initiative allows us to follow up on existing concepts and experiences on doctoral education that were co-developed and backed from the German or EU side in the past – such as in the framework of the EU Tempus programme," Petrick said after the workshop. The Volkswagen Foundation currently supports several research projects on agricultural development in Central Asia, among them "AGRICHANGE - Institutional change in land and labour relations of Central Asia’s irrigated agriculture" led by Djanibekov and Petrick.
IAMO researchers support doctoral education in Uzbekistan
On 28 January 2017, IAMO researchers Dr. Nodir Djanibekov and Prof. Dr. Martin Petrick together with partners from Samarkand Agricultural Institute organised a stakeholder workshop on the future establishment of a joint graduate programme on sustainable agricultural development in Central Asia.
