Economic and Higher Education Partnership of Hungary and Kazakhstan

Abstract

The aim of our research was to describe, compare, and analyze the development of business and educational co-operation between Kazakhstan and Hungary over the past 19 years. The research was prompted by the university-level co-operation between the two countries that star ted in 2018, which was made possible by the strategic partnership that is the topic of the present article. We started from the hypothesis that both business and educational co-operation has developed linearly and significantly during the last 19 years. Our research methodology was based on gathering and analyzing secondary macroeconomic, trade, and educational co-operation data in the period between 2011 and 2020. The data were obtained from publications, national offices (statistical, commerce, and education), and international bodies (like TempusPublic Foundation, Eurostat, International Monetary Fund [IMF], and the World Bank). In this paper, we intend to link the main political, social, and macroeconomic endowments with business and educational developments of partnership in the two countries, trying to map out prospects for co-operation. One conclusion is that, although in the political communications of the two countries we were able to identify significant governmental efforts on both sides to support and enforce economic and educational co-operation, the data indicate a decrease in the size of business investments. At the same time, however, the educational co-operation between the two parties continues to develop further.