Introduction and Policy Context

Since becoming independent from the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s, the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have established strategic priorities focused on the globalization and internationalization of higher education (Collins et al., 2022; Ibrasheva et al., 2021; Sagitova et al., 2024). Each country has ambitious goals to increase their participation and reputation in the international knowledge economy. Consequently, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are being transformed from predominantly teaching institutions into teaching and research organisations. In pursuit of internationalisation, the educational policy landscape of these Central Asian Middle-Income Countries (MICs) has been overwhelmed by ‘traveling policies’ (Silova, 2005, p. 51) or ‘policy borrowing’ (Steiner-Khamsi, 2016) ‘to ‘normalize’ their higher education systems’ (Smolentseva et al., 2018, p. 2). Reforms dominated by policy discourses from High Income Countries in the Global North are being migrated across boundaries with little reflection on their suitability to other contexts (Gan & Israel, 2019; Israel, 2018; Ruby & Li, 2020; Silova, 2005).

Attention to research development and knowledge production is intended to address under-development of these areas in the region (Jonbekova, 2020), in terms of quantity and quality, specifically in areas such as the social sciences. The limited development has been attributed to a combination of factors such as lack of funding (Ahn et al., 2018), brain drain due to the outflow of researchers after Soviet dissolution (Kataeva & DeYoung, 2018), separation of research and teaching in universities, insufficient training in research methodology, lack of equipment and limited management of scientific activities (Jonbekova & Kuchumova, 2020). In Kazakhstan, despite small, continuous increases in funding of research and development, engagement in global knowledge production remains low with limited numbers of publications in high-quality scholarly international journals (Lovakov & Yudkevich, 2021). This is especially so in social sciences where Kazakhstani research remains on the outskirts of global knowledge production (Suyarkulova, 2018).

Recent policies in Kyrgyzstan, namely the National Development Strategy for 2018–2040 and The Concept of Scientific and Innovative Development (2017), also indicate the country’s increased ambitions toward greater involvement in the global research landscape, ‘Westernizing’ science and adopting various neoliberal approaches to research which have dismantled the centralized and planned science system (Syrgak, Sagitova & Parmenter., upcoming). These policies note the critical state of research in the country and stress the need for striving for international standards for the sustainable development of research capacity in Kyrgyzstan. Nevertheless, Kyrgyzstan science remains caught between two peripheries – the ‘Soviet periphery’ and the ‘global periphery’ (Silova, 2011) meaning a state of academic and financial reliance on transnational donor organizations and research centres. While the country is making efforts to dissolve the Soviet-style centralised and planned nature of science organizations, Syrgak, Sagitova & Parmenter (upcoming) argue that its effects are still persistent. For example, Kyrgyzstan has kept a hybrid degree structure maintaining both the Soviet Candidate of Science degree and the Western equivalent, the PhD (Ovezmyradov, 2023), unlike Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan who have both adopted the Bologna degree structure.

Over the last decade, the Uzbekistan government has also sought to stimulate research and development, by drawing educational practices from developed research nations (Uralov, 2020). There has been an active shift to internationalization of higher education and scientific research in Uzbekistan, largely attributed to large-scale policy changes at the end of 2016 (Eshchanov et al., 2019; Troitskiy & Yun, 2021; Uralov, 2020). However, as in Kazakhstan, there has been concern that unsustainable pressures to publish are providing perverse incentives for research students and academics to publish in predatory journals (Eshchanov et al., 2021).

Like many parts of both the Global North and the Global South (Israel, 2015), it is not surprising that research ethics policies in Central Asia have been created first in relation to biomedical research (Collins, Sharplin & Burkhanov, 2023) and that they remain undeveloped for the social sciences. Kazakhstan has had research ethics regulation in the biomedical field since 2005 (MoHRK, 2005; 2007) with a National Ethics Committee established in 2008 (MoHRK, 2008). While institutions are required to have a clinical research ethics commission review to become nationally accredited (Ramazanova et al., 2014), there is no similar regulation of human research in any other disciplines. Similarly, both in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, biomedical research is regulated by national laws and regulations (Collins et al., 2022; Zurdinov et al., 2007).

Lack of attention to social science research ethics policies and practices leaves participants vulnerable to harm in two ways. First, researchers may use practices that inadvertently place their participants at risk. There are no accountability processes such as peer review that might challenge this. Second, the use of imported research protocols and practices may cause harm within a culturally different context. As a result, a quantitative study by Berekeyeva et al. (2023, p. 20) reported a ‘considerable proportion of social science researchers in Central Asia (43.1%) lack education in research ethics, and consequently have a limited understanding of ethical practices in research with human participants’.

Few higher education institutions in Kazakhstan have institutional ethics review processes (Sharplin et al., forthcoming). To fill the void in one discipline, the Kazakhstan Education Research Association (KERA) created a Code of Research Ethics for Education in 2020. This drew on the principlism that underpins the US Common Rule in human research ethics, embedding core ideas within Kazakh legislative codes.

In Kyrgyzstan, the government recognises the need for the introduction of international research ethics principles (Ministry of Justice of Kyrgyz Republic, 2017). However, despite national research policies, there is no common national document on the ethics of research. The 2023 Law on Science (Ministry of Justice of Kyrgyz Republic, 2023) simply indicates researchers must ‘carry out scientific activities without violating human rights and freedoms, without causing harm to the life and health of others, as well as the environment’ (Article 8.2.2). Researchers are held responsible if they breach the norms of professional ethics and moral rules (Article 8.3).

In Uzbekistan, the government has endeavoured to boost research and development over the past decade. Comprehensive reforms have updated the regulatory structure for research administration and emphasised a global engagement for higher education, but no policy covers ethical practices in social science research. According to Collins et al. (2022, p. 13),

…there is minimal discussion within the country about international standards of research ethics in the fields of humanities and social sciences and their potential significance for overall research integrity and the high-quality scientific knowledge production sought after by the Uzbek government.

Where ethics review structures have been created by individual institutions, they appear to be largely imported from the Global North (Mirkasimov et al., 2021; Ubaydullaeva, 2020; Uralov, 2020).

The current practices are such that the majority of higher education institutions in all three countries, both public and private, have so called ethics committees that consider all ethics-related issues, including code of conduct matters. These committees review graduate students’ dissertations after they have been written to check for plagiarism and the alignment of methodology with what was initially proposed. Due to the lack of institutional or national research ethics procedures and regulations, social science researchers often carry out their research without an institutional approval process. The ethical conduct of the research is the individual researcher’s responsibility. However, they may refer to Codes of Professional Conduct that constitute and codify accountability for researchers.

Given the current vacuum in social science research ethics policies, it is timely to consider how researchers may be most effectively guided to conduct ethical research which will assist Central Asian countries to participate in the knowledge economy. In light of scholarly and policy debates in favour of culturally and contextually relevant research ethics (see for example Chattopadhyay et al., 2013; Hellsten, 2015; Tosam, 2020), this article addresses the question of how and in what ways higher education policy could or should support culturally relevant research ethics in Central Asia. In doing so, we draw on 100 qualitative in-depth interviews conducted with social science researchers in three countries.

Literature Review

Policy Internationalisation and Globalization

A significant body of work on the internationalization of policy has focussed on the concepts of traveling policies (Silova, 2005), policy borrowing (Steiner-Khamsi, 2016) or policy transfer (Stone et al., 2020). The literature has examined how policies are adopted, sometimes as a simple ‘transplant’ (Phillips & Ochs, 2004) or adapted (sometimes referred to as translation and customisation) within new contexts (Graham et al., 2013; Stone, 2017). Transnational organizations such as the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) are often powerful forces in the migration of policies from the Global North to the Global South (Draude, 2020; Spring, 2014; Stone et al., 2020), with policymakers compelled to introduce practices consistent with multilateral organizations standards. These organizations have become ‘global norm setters’, with transnational policy borrowing the rule and not the exception (Steiner-Khamsi, 2016, p. 388).

As in many other regions, there are strategic pressures for higher education in Central Asia to increase research performance. This has resulted in demands on higher education institutions and their researchers to compete on world rankings and publication metrics for promotion and renewal (Moss et al., 2007). Politicians regard university rankings as a measure of international competitiveness, with the pursuit of rankings reshaping national higher education systems (Anichkin & Kovalenko, 2018; Brink, 2023). However, to be competitive in international knowledge production, institutions require research policy and infrastructure to support their endeavours.

Spring (2014) argues that increasing internationalization in Kazakhstan is resulting in the ‘homogenization’ of policies and practices. To guard against homogenization, Peters (2007) argues for the need to understand cultural preconditions before migrating policies. He states that ‘knowledge cultures are based on shared epistemic practices, they embody culturally preferred ways of doing things, often developed over many generations’ (p. 23). Understanding these preconditions is essential to evaluate the appropriateness of policy migration or the extent to which the policy should be contextually adapted.

Direct policy transfer has been strongly critiqued, particularly in non-Western settings, as neo-imperial where cultural diversity is assimilated to produce more monocultural practices (Helsten, 2015). Critics have questioned the universality of world cultural models by noting divergence between global norms and local meanings (Anderson-Levitt, 2003; Schriewer, 2012; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). The assumption of global ‘sameness’ fails to appreciate the diversity and uniqueness of contexts (Silova & Rappleye, 2015). Many comparative researchers have warned against transplanting policies from one country to another, particularly educational reforms (Steiner-Khamsi, 2016).

Rather than perceiving policy migration as a binary choice of either policy cloning or policy uniqueness, Clapham (2023, citing Hodgson & Spours, 2016) advocates exploration of the extent to which a policy is culturally and contextually aligned or misaligned. It is therefore critical to examine the ‘cultural, philosophical, social and structural contexts’ of the host nation and the borrower jurisdiction (Clapham, 2023, p. 5).

Research Ethics Policy Migration

The global export of principlism forms ‘part of broader international flows of capital, students and academics, as well as knowledge and ideology’ (Israel, 2018, p. 95). Global capital has shaped research ethics governance. In particular, US regulators have used health research funding as leverage to ensure American formal requirements are mirrored by institutions in countries that receive this funding. In addition, multinational research teams have been attracted to low- and middle-income countries for multicentre drug trials because of the lower risks of litigation, low labour costs, weak ethics review and the absence of other regulatory processes. Where jurisdictions have been unable or unwilling to develop their own research ethics review guidelines, international health bodies have supplied ‘best practice’ templates and standard operating protocols.

Another driver for international policy transfer in research ethics has been the influence of transnational professional networks (Israel, 2018). Growth in internationalization of higher education might play a part in providing access to and mobility within such global communities for Central Asian academics. Indeed, encouraging student and academic international mobility has become a part of national development plans in Central Asia (Alimukhamedov, 2020).

The Global North dominates the destination countries for students from many low- and middle-income countries, though patterns have shifted and become more diverse over time as the dominance of North America and Western Europe has been challenged (Glass & Cruz, 2023). The situation is complex for Central Asia where UNESCO student mobility data shows most students from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan who leave their countries to study, move to Russia. Similarly, Russian researchers have been the main partners for scientists from these three countries (Alimukhamedov, 2020). However, there are smaller student flows to Europe, Northern America and within Central Asia. For example, Uzbekistan students are also found in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Research students and academics returning to Central Asia may facilitate international transfer of a range of policies. This group may have a disproportionate impact on policy formation in their home country. In Kazakhstan, the Bolashak scholarship program has enabled elite students to complete an international higher education degree at top international universities, predominantly in North America and the United Kingdom, returning home with knowledge of research ethics policies and processes from hosting institutions (Sharplin et al., forthcoming). Students studying internationally may respond to their experiences of higher education research processes and policies in diverse ways. Some may uncritically adopt disciplinary, institutional or national practices they have been exposed to during their international experience. Others may resist, avoid or adapt practices.

Capacity-building programs funded by the Global North and delivered in the South may also promote policy transfer through epistemic communities. These are less well-established in Central Asia than elsewhere. However, the United States Institutes of Health Fogarty International Centre has funded training that has included some researchers from Central Asia (Strosberg et al., 2013), with another grant funding the Central Asia Network for 2019–2024 (Fogarty International Center, n.d.). The creation of Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, with a specific mandate to modernize education has resulted in the introduction of an Americanized approach to research ethics, with a requirement for all researchers associated with the university to undertake US-based research ethics training (CITI Programs, n.d.).

The appropriateness of the adoption of US practices in other contexts, especially the use of CITI research ethics training, has been criticised (Bayer, 2011, quoted in Schrag, 2011) particularly when deployed outside health sciences. Commentators in other parts of the world have questioned whether some of the systems supported by US-funded research ethics initiatives in lower- and middle- income countries are sustainable, well-designed and appropriate in these settings, and whether they rely too much on professionals from the United States (De Vries & Rott, 2011; Garrafa & Lorenzo, 2008; Hellmann et al., 2015).

The introduction of transnational higher education institutions, including branch campuses or affiliates of international universities, and the use of strategic international partners in local universities may also accelerate policy transfer as either an intended or unintended consequence of the exercise of soft power. In Kazakhstan, Varpahovskis and Kuteleva (2023a) maintained that the role of transnational higher education institutions lay partly in ‘building regulatory capacities of Kazakhstan’s education system and diffusing transnational education standards and practices’ (p.365). However, unreflexively replicating the policy of a home institution at a branch campus that operates in an entirely different context may do little to build the human capital and local culture that Lee and Kuzhabekova (2019) argued, based on the experience of Kazakhstan, was necessary to support and stimulate research in a sustainable manner.

Varpahovskis and Kuteleva (2023b) identified 61 transnational higher education institutions operating in Kazakhstan (14), Uzbekistan (28) and Kyrgyzstan (19) in 2001. Kazakhstan is aiming to open 12 more branch campuses by 2029. In contrast, only four operated in Tajikistan and none in Turkmenistan. While not all the institutions were linked to an international parent institution, there were branch campuses of universities from Russia (Chankseliani, 2021), Türkiye, Germany, Egypt, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, India, Italy, Singapore, Belarus and Latvia. In internationalized universities in all three countries, the initial approach has been to directly transfer research ethics policy from another context (Sagitova et al., 2024; Sharplin et al., forthcoming).

Many national regulators seeking to create a legislative basis for research ethics have assumed that the four pillars of principlism (Beauchamp & Childress, 2019), which underlie international research ethics, are universal. This has been contested, in particular within global bioethics (Chattopadhyay & De Vries, 2013; Tosam, 2020), by disciplines outside health sciences, and by researchers across the Global South (Israel, 2015, 2018). Zhakupova et al. (2022, p. 40) examined the universality of ethics principles in Kazakhstan and concluded:

Considering the theoretical foundations of both Kazakh normative ethics and modern Western research ethics, we believe that it is possible to accept the dominant principles of beneficence, non-harm, and justice, which are universal for Eastern and Western cultures of thought. The principle of respect for autonomy is less culturally compatible. On the one hand, thinking that recognizes (‘given by God’) the free will of people is consistent with the concept of autonomy, but collectivist and patriarchal cultural norms create some contradictions with this concept. The eclecticism of the past may allow these contradictions to coexist, but it is necessary to consider the optimal ethical standards at the state level. [translated from Russian].

Approaches that are framed on the unquestioned universality of Eurocentric scientific and moral ideas lean towards cultural assimilation, having neo-colonial, paternalistic and imperialistic features (Bamford, 2019). There is increasing resistance to this universalistic narrative in many parts of the world. Academics who come from different cultural backgrounds tend to counter-argue that ‘out there’ there is a variety of different views that should be considered when we study ethics (Dower, 2014; Widdows, 2011). They advocate for ‘cross-cultural and transnational ethical dialogue and finding ways to joint action’ (Hellsten, 2015, p. 8) to avoid oversimplifying cultures and polarizing between different values systems.

The three countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are all secular Muslim Majority countries where the majority of the population identify as Muslims although the state is designed as non-religious (Collins & Sharplin, 2024). In this context, principles derived from Islam might inform ethical research practices of Muslim scientists (Rattani, 2019). It is valuable to hear the voices of Muslim researchers to contribute and participate in the ongoing research ethics conversation. Equally importantly, an understanding of the expected religious and associated cultural practices is important for researchers from other cultural backgrounds who may be working within a secular Muslim majority context (Collins & Sharplin, 2024). Collins & Sharplin (2024) contends that cultural and religious nuances can lead to varying interpretations of what constitutes harm though many principles of contemporary Western and Islamic ethics are somewhat compatible (Afifi, 2007). This can result in contradictions, especially concerning the balance between collective versus individual good and personal autonomy. Furthermore, due to conventional gender norms and expectations prevalent in Muslim-majority nations, nuances concerning women’s participation in academic research have to be considered in applying ethical considerations (Collins & Sharplin, 2024; Tabaeva, 2023). Similarly, the interpretation and application of ethical principles might vary in other religions which should be taken into consideration.

Previous review of social science research ethics regulations conducted as part of this project (Syrgak, Sagitova & Parmenter, upcoming) concluded the growing focus on scientific and research development in the Central Asian countries implies three possible pathways for establishing research ethics. First, social science research ethics might be adopted through the import and direct application of guidelines from countries of the Global North. While this approach promotes research collaboration and compliance with the requirements of international publication and some international funders such as the National Institutes of Health in the United States and the European Research Council, concerns arise regarding the lack of congruence between the realities of regional social science research and mere ‘international’ checkbox compliance.

The second trajectory involves deriving social science research ethics from existing national biomedical research ethics policies and guidelines. Many countries have followed this path, including many in the Global North, but it risks ‘the colonization of social sciences research ethics by bioethics’ (Israel, 2018, p. 90). In this way, biomedical discourses, personnel and institutions can dominate the determination of what constitutes ethical research, displacing long-standing ethical social science practices and delegitimating social science expertise.

And the third scenario relies on the development of social science research ethics by professional associations, organizations, or higher education institutions engaged in social science research. This approach avoids ‘one-size-fits-all biomedical research ethical norms’ (Gan & Israel, 2019, p. 11), and can empower researchers to explore pertinent social issues using a range of methodologies and epistemologies that align with diverse disciplines. However, it may result in a patchwork of guidelines whose inconsistencies pose a barrier to collaborations across disciplines and institutions. In addition, many organizations, research institutions and countries lack the resources to create and maintain policy, guidance and resources.

This study seeks to inform the development of research ethics policy for Central Asian countries, navigating a pathway between international and disciplinary ethical imperialism, and the trap of ‘ethno-ethics’ that present distinct culturally fully embedded ‘ethical alternatives’ – rather than constructive ways forward across cultural borders. The research team follows Clapham, 2023 (p. 83) in seeking ‘a more fundamental and multifaceted analysis that can start to bring together different views rather than alienate them from each other’. This is consistent with Gan & Israel (2019) who advocated respecting local histories and understanding local regulatory practices to enable ‘research ethicists to learn from others’. Our Central Asian study identifies that most higher education institutions do not have the institutional infrastructure to implement internationalized approaches to research ethics and that linguistic barriers and limited educational opportunities challenge any future research ethics policy development.

Methodology

To explore how and in what ways research policy can or should develop to support culturally relevant research ethics in Central Asia, we draw on 100 qualitative interviews with social science faculty members in three countries (Kazakhstan = 48, Kyrgyzstan = 22, Uzbekistan = 30). The sampling of participants was purposeful, targeting social science researchers working in higher education institutions in the three countries, with the intention that these participants could provide insights into the research question – that is, they know the ethical practices and processes in their institutions that are related to their research. Researchers working in biomedical and STEM research were excluded because their experiences are not relevant to this particular study. We also used snowball sampling to extend the reach of our recruitment, particularly in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, where the research team initially had a smaller network. In Central Asia, recruitment is facilitated through trusted networks; a personal introduction is valued over institutional documentation. Based in Kazakhstan, the research team had extensive networking with and access to social scientists in Kazakhstan which provided more opportunities to recruit participants. At the same time, the number of participants also reflect the level of development of social science research – and the number of researchers. As such, Kazakhstan has been a leader in social science research since Independence, while Uzbekistan has been prioritizing hard sciences over social sciences (Collins et al., 2022).

The interviews were conducted online and in person, in Kazakh (14), Uzbek (8), Russian (66) and English (12), based on the preference of the participant. Due to the geographical distances and our limited resources, it was impossible to travel to all regions in all three countries to conduct interviews in person. Thus, most interviews were held online. Interviews were recorded, with the permission of participants, transcribed and translated into English so that they could be shared across a multilingual research team. The ability to offer a range of languages for interviews was important as attitudes towards globalization and regional collaboration might have changed according to fluency in English and Russian. The transcripts were cleaned to remove any identifying details and labelled with codes to preserve country identifiers and institutional identifiers. For example, participants were given codes of 001 for Kazakhstan, 002 for Kyrgyzstan and 003 for Uzbekistan. The coding was used for within and cross case analysis. Direct quotes from interviews included in the text also provide details of the participants’ education background as local/international as well as the language of interview.

The interview protocol consisted of nine main questions with potential probing sub-questions covering aspects of participants’ backgrounds, their knowledge of research ethics, institutional processes for research ethics regulation, their familiarity with international research ethics guidelines, their personal approaches to ethics in their own research and their perspectives on future development in research ethics in Central Asia. For this paper, we focus on interview questions such as: How do Central Asian researchers and research institutions believe social science research ethics should be developed? Should Central Asian cultural and contextual values be reflected in principles, protocols and process of social science research ethics? Is there any need for research ethics to be regulated by institutions and/or nationally?

Data was analysed using NVivo software, iteratively developing and refining codes through country team-based discursive and reflective practices from February to May 2023. Codes were amalgamated into categories and themes were generated. In this article we focus on research ethics policy development in the region, a subset of the research data. Key themes such as ‘need for national code’, ‘attitudes to research ethics regulations’, ‘Western-adapted’, ‘regional’, ‘national’ were drawn from interviews. The research was approved by the Nazarbayev University Institutional Research Ethics Committee (no.577/26052022).

Findings

We present four themes that emerged from the data analysis:

  • Identifying the extent of the universality of research ethics principles presents participants attitudes towards international standards of research ethics in the context of their country and the region;

  • Identifying areas of cultural sensitivity for adaptation of the international to the local introduces perspectives of participants on whether international research ethics should be adapted towards culturally informed standards and policies;

  • Regional vs. National and National vs. Institutional regulation themes demonstrate participants’ attitudes towards the levels at which research ethics needs to be potentially regulated as per the regulatory framework of the country or the region;

  • Fear of additional bureaucracy provides some insights into participants’ scepticism toward the more regulatory nature of research ethics procedures.

We found significant variation in attitudes between countries, suggesting it might be difficult to reach a regional consensus. We also saw considerable variation within countries.

Identifying the Extent of the Universality of Research Ethics Principles

Views on the future development of research ethics in each country or region varied dramatically between the three countries. Of 48 respondents from Kazakhstan, more than half supported the idea of universality of research ethics and therefore the relevance of Western or internationally accepted principles of research ethics. Conversely, only two out of 20 respondents in Kyrgyzstan and three out of 30 respondents in Uzbekistan perceived the universality of research ethics. Instead, they supported development of national research ethics regulations that reflect national and cultural values.

The majority of participants from Kazakhstan were strongly in favour of aligning with Western and therefore global standards:

And how well do they match? Well, it seems to me they do, why not? Because it’s international… the ethical principles, they do not have a nationality… And our principles are the same as any world principles. (001ARKR, local, in Russian)

I think that gradually, slowly, European, Europeanization will dominate throughout the world, that is, we will gradually switch to Western scientific rules anyway. As our president says, we are supporters of international agreements, international law, our Kazakhs are such cosmopolitans, that is, we have no such concepts as ‘ours’ and ‘yours’, we have cosmopolitan thinking, we are nomads, probably because of this our mindset is that of fast learners. (001PGAG, local, in Russian)

Kazakhstani respondents sought to promote research quality and facilitate international collaboration. This drive for international collaboration and publication is strongly pursued by national governments in all three countries. As such, a respondent from Uzbekistan also indicated that:

…it’s science after all. Why should each State have its own code? The fact that journals are global… All these citation standards are also global, so ethics is also, probably, global for a long time, right? (003BUIN, local, in Russian)

Respondents that indicated the universality of ethical principles diminished the significance of the Central Asian context, and the relevance of nationality or borders in relation to research and science overall. Their justification lay in concepts of how the ‘world is one, people are the same’ and thus ‘World science is outside of all this – outside of politics, outside of national differences, and ethical norms are the same here’ (001AKRK, local in Russian). As a result, they argued any policies on research ethics should follow international standards:

The fact is that in every international code these points are still prescribed, regardless of whether [in] Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan. It should be unified, because research is something common. Universal. (001KNKA, local, in Russian)

Some respondents would justify their support for universality based on international human rights (001ALTN, local, in Russian). Similarly, as humans, as per some respondents, ‘ethical aspects are quite common for humans, with no special characteristics that correspond only to Kazakhstan’. And thus, ‘​​thousands of millions of people have already done these studies before me and they have trodden this path, it doesn’t matter Kazakh or foreign’.

Support for Western standards was also a marker of a desire to tackle persistent Soviet-style management and mindsets which were perceived to hinder university research policy development. Instead, internationally educated and experienced researchers sought to introduce policies from successful research contexts. For example, a participant from Uzbekistan expressed a sceptical attitude to all Soviet-educated researchers suggesting they be replaced with the Western-educated for more effective implementation of international practices such as establishing IRBs [Institutional Research Boards] and respective policies (003WUDA, international, in English).

Identifying Areas of Cultural Sensitivity for Adaptation of the International to the Local

However, more than 50 per cent of respondents in three countries supported the introduction of more culturally nuanced research ethics policies.

I don’t deny the need [for Western research ethics], but it should be consistent with our mindset. And it is necessary to take sides that contribute to the development of our society. (001JUYM, local, in Kazakh)

The respondents’ focus on ‘mindset’ suggests a national or regional mindset should be considered, implying the need for policy adaptation not a simplistic transfer. They indicated differences in mindset and socio-cultural values and the vision of people with a reference to being Central Asian or Eastern rather than Western.

The words of our first President, ‘Democracy cannot be exported and imported’, so for the [research ethics] code, we should not copy, we should include the local diversity, it is very crucial. Actually, everything that is newly created is an old that is forgotten. Our ancestors, Eastern predecessors once used to teach them, Westerners, these principles. (003BUDD, local, in Russian)

…we are a nation, and we have our own values, our traditions. We say that this country is developed, even I just said that it is necessary as in developed countries, but we move a little away from our own, from our origins, from our values. We kind of overestimate Western values. (002IUAS, local, in Russian)

Previous research in the field has also highlighted that there is a nuanced aspect of mindset often associated with the Soviet past (Tampayeva, 2015; Yergebekov & Temirbekova, 2012) and central controlled system, as well as international force that can ruin the national identity (Gafu, 2019). A stronger commitment to cultural and contextual adaptation of policy was more likely to come from Uzbek and Kyrgyz respondents.

Why should we adopt if we have our own way? If you want to see your own future of research in any field, you should find your own way. (003BUAM, international, in English).

The perspective of these respondents from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan supported ‘our culture, our identity, our language, our way’. For example, the ‘Uzbekistani way of research’ was something expressed very distinctly as a respondent suggests that ‘we need to be recognized by other countries and looking at the research, other countries should realize that the research belongs to Uzbekistan’ (003BUGO, local, in Uzbek). Another Uzbek respondent expressed a hope for having a regional code which must be written ‘in Kazakh, Uzbek, Kirgiz, Tadjik, and Turkman languages, not in Russian as science must be in native language’. (003BUNA, local, in Uzbek)

There were also arguments for preserving national and cultural identity while aligning with international norms. A respondent from Kyrgyzstan suggested interpreting ‘higher values and the form of our ideology’ in order to have ‘interesting developments in research ethics’ (002IUCS, local, in Russian). A respondent in Kazakhstan suggested what they called an ‘intermediate option’:

…we, of course, need to focus on the existing experience, on international global standards. But then, when we see how they work in our context, to see what fits and works and what doesn’t fit and doesn’t work then, perhaps, then we will begin to develop some of our own strategies and recipes, in order to promote our science. (001KTRT, local, in Russian)

There was some agreement among respondents knowledgeable about international research ethics principles that overarching research ethics principles can be used as a framework but then adapted to the specific cultural sensitivity of communities in local contexts. One suggested, for example, working in Uzbekistan with mahalla, the government-sanctioned local community authorities. Similarly, a respondent from Kyrgyzstan also referred to the importance of adapting to the context but preserving universal principles.

…it needs to be adapted. And to do this, you need to study the context very well. It turns out that the legal part is different, political and social, and then, of course, investigators’ current practices, best practices, challenges, they make some conclusion. And still take these basic principles universal: voluntary participation, do no harm, confidentiality, anonymity, informed consent and then adapt them to our context. (002IRKZ, international, in Russian)

While respondents in all three countries agreed most of the principles of internationally accepted research ethics might work, some argued they need to be applied in a way that made sense in context. For instance, in relation to informed consent to participate in research:

Purely being international is not suitable for us… signing consent forms, it’s a prime example. Our people do not like to sign all sorts of documents, but they can verbally give their consent. (002AUKD, international, in Russian)

Of course, this hostility to written consent is common to many countries with a history of authoritarian governments, collective decision-making, and a cultural emphasis on relationships rather than rules (Collins, Sharplin & Burkhanov, 2023; Wynn & Israel, 2018). However, Whitsell and Merrill (2021) also noted the importance of ‘oral traditions, expectations of hospitality, gender roles and a mistrust of outsiders’ (p. 356) to any endeavour aimed at building culturally informed consent procedures in the Central Asian context.

Regional vs. National vs. Institutional Regulation

While the majority of respondents supported either adopting national or international research ethics regulations, a few advocated for a Central Asian supranational regional code. Those few came from Uzbekistan who believed regional policy would help strengthen cultural values in Central Asia. The argument behind regional collaboration is based on the view that there is a similar ‘frame of mind’ across the Central Asian region which should be used to create common approaches to research ethics.

In our region, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and even Afghanistan, the mindset is almost similar. That’s why on a regional level through collaborative methodologies, we should create the process. (003BUDD, local, in Russian)

A recent report from the World Bank (2023) highlights that regionalization in the higher education sector in Central Asia is limited in scope despite such initiatives now being implemented in other supranational regions. The report suggests that ‘despite similarities between their higher education systems as well as shared challenges and opportunities, Central Asian countries have yet to develop their own framework for cooperation in higher education’ (p.7). Similarly, exploring the epistemic power of social science in Central Asia, Gafu & Parmenter (forthcoming) argue there is a potential for Central Asian social science ‘to use the richness of its past and current context to come together as an epistemic community and create a pluriepistemic foundation for future research in the region’ (p.1).

Given the long history of Soviet and post-Soviet strong centralised governance in the three countries, most research institutions have limited autonomy. As a result, respondents do not view institutions as key drivers of policy development and expressed their preference toward top-down government-led initiatives in promoting research ethics policies. Such an attitude was predominant among Uzbekistani participants.

So here, in Uzbekistan, local universities are controlled by ministries of higher education and administrates… probably it would be simpler and easier to disseminate the policies and regulations, like if it is done at the national level, rather than letting the university choose to create their own regulations, it would be chaotic. (003SKEU, international, in English)

In Kazakhstan, though, due to recent reforms granting universities institutional autonomy, respondents envisage more institutional level regulation, with the state providing general guidelines. Similarly, in Kyrgyzstan, respondents expressed the need for national oversight, formalized across the system but with universities creating their own policies.

At the same time, there were also concerns that even state-mandated matters might not change straight away. Concerns were expressed toward the possibility of following rules once they are set as people tend to violate rules. For example, some respondents, particularly in Kazakhstan, mentioned the failure to sanction academics who plagiarize.

In addition to institutional tailoring, one more interesting perspective addressed by a participant in Uzbekistan which aligns with debates among international researchers is the need for separate regulations and guidelines for different disciplines and methodologies. The respondent mentioned the US IRB system designed primarily for medical research which is not compatible with social sciences.

I think that at a national level there could be some general standards and particularly maybe with things like medical, that are going to be more equal across the nation. But I think it would be good for institutions to have them that are more tailored for different types of research, since they’re going to be different, different ethical issues… the IRB and those codes can be very good at institutions, but it would be great if we could have like IRBs almost for each department. (003PUEB, international, in English)

Fear of Additional Bureaucracy

While the majority of respondents expressed a positive attitude towards research ethics regulation and setting up institutional research boards, there were also concerns about the potential increase of bureaucratic hurdles in gaining ethics review. A respondent from Kazakhstan mentions the complexity of adopting policies from elsewhere as ‘often these requirements become very formalized when they come to a specific locality and they generally lose their intended purpose and meaning. They just become a bureaucratic procedure, nothing else’ (001KTRT, local, in Russian)

There was a concern such bureaucracy might close the region to outside researchers as has occurred in Tajikistan. One respondent mentioned the case when an international student from Canada was caught for conducting interviews with representatives of opposition parties in Tajikistan (Clibbon, 2014; Niyozov, 2017). After this, Tajikistan legislation required international researchers to obtain official permission from the Tajikistan Academy of Sciences before conducting research in that country (Sabzalieva, 2019). The same restrictions are in place for local researchers who wish to travel abroad to attend conferences (Sabzalieva, 2019) although such a law is unlikely in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan given they are actively seeking to align their research to international standards (DeYoung et al., 2018).

However, a respondent from Kyrgyzstan noted the frequent churn of government ministers undermined effective policy development and implementation. They noted the need for research ethics adoption at the national level was conveyed to one minister but once the minister was replaced the change did not occur.

Summary of Findings

The attitude of participants toward policy adoption, adaption or development of social science research ethics in the region varies between and within each country. While many respondents from Kazakhstan prefer international research ethics guidelines and standards to be adopted as they perceive scientific research as universal, respondents from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are not very supportive, wanting processes that adapt to the context or are co-developed to be culturally and contextually nuanced and aligned with local and national ways of thinking.

Discussion

Despite similar development paths since independence, participants from the three Central Asian countries expressed different views about the future direction for research ethics in their country and the region broadly. A bare majority of participants from Kazakhstan favoured internationalisation of research ethics and supported a Western or Eurocentric focus. The reason for this attitude might lie in the strong national policy agenda toward internationalization of higher education and research and more explicitly internationalized practices in Kazakhstan (Sagintayeva & Kurakbayev, 2013) in comparison with the other two countries. From the start of the Independence in 1991, Kazakhstan has opted to be open for global integration including in the higher education field. The strong internationalization agenda has been persistent in all reforms in higher education and research. For example, Kazakhstan established a major program of scholarships to support study abroad in 1993, became a Bologna Declaration signatory and implemented its standards in 2010, implemented a trilingual education policy in schools and universities, and created Nazarbayev University as a new model of an internationalized university.

For more than a decade, the country has made it a priority for researchers to publish in high quality international publications and seek international collaborations and this has been reflected in faculty hiring and promotion practices (Kuzhabekova & Ruby, 2018). Kazakhstan has shown steady positive development and growth in the global share of Central Asia publications and citations since 2011 (Ovezmyradov, 2023).

Furthermore, state programs such as the Bolashak Scholarship program have resulted in a significant number of potential change makers or policy ambassadors (Porto de Oliveira, 2019) championing the introduction of policies consistent with those they worked with during their own higher education in other countries (Tomanova & Zhumashov, 2014). These policy initiatives are likely to have influenced the views of respondents, encouraging them to look to international practices. Nevertheless, there was still some support for the need to contextualise research ethics to the cultural context of Kazakhstan.

Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan also prioritised internationalisation policies in developing their higher education and research systems. In Uzbekistan such policies proliferated in the post-Karimov period after 2016 (Collins et al., 2022) shown particularly in the increasing number of international branch campuses. Kyrgyzstan’s internationalisation agenda has largely been associated with international donor organisations’ presence in the country (Amsler, 2008). Despite this, participants in these countries expressed strong support for national research ethics regulations that reflect national and cultural values. Kyrgyzstani researchers expressed some awareness of Western research practices. This seemed to empower them to question the value of globally prevalent research ethics policies and practices, demonstrating a heightened recognition of cultural and contextual differences to the international contexts from which research ethics policies are being adopted. Consequently, for Kyrgyz researchers there is a greater inclination to favour research ethics regulations established at the national level.

Similarly, Uzbek participants favoured a national code for research ethics rather than adopting a Westernised approach, but they also advocated for regional Central Asian policy. Some regional collaboration is taking place in Central Asian higher education and research. With the support of the World Bank, steps have been taken to create a Central Asian Higher Education Area by the Ministers of Education of five countries (Ambasz et al., 2023). Based on the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) model, this aims ‘to bring the national higher education systems into greater harmony’ (Harden-Wolfson, 2021).

Of the three countries, Uzbek researchers are most concerned about additional bureaucracy that could emerge as a consequence of research ethics regulations; they were sensitive to the persistence of a Soviet bureaucratic culture within a post-Soviet authoritarian regime. The main features of the Soviet bureaucracy, as reflected in universities in particular, were strict state oversight and a strict hierarchical organisational structure with top-down management, uniformity in all academic matters, including curriculum, course content, and research priorities, often with limited academic freedom and the ability to independently explore diverse ideas (Kuraev, 2016). The Communist Party enforced its ideological beliefs (De Witt, 1955), particularly in social sciences, and the focus was primarily on positivist research in STEM fields. In Central Asian countries, a bureaucratic approach remains evident in higher education, and there is a view that research ethics is about regulatory compliance rather than the promotion of a genuine culture of ethics and integrity.

Sharplin et al. (forthcoming) argue the absence of research ethics policies and practices presents a potential barrier for the three countries examined in this article to achieve their strategic goals of producing knowledge that will have a global impact. In the absence of research ethics guidelines and codes, access to international funding and publication are more difficult to achieve. In order to become active contributors to global knowledge production, emerging research countries need to be aware of international standards and requirements; however, they can elect to manage the policy migration process, by crafting internationalized policies to more appropriately fit within the socio-cultural context of countries. Zhakupova et al. (2022) have identified some universal elements that fit well in Kazakh contexts, but the participants we interviewed have identified national and, in the case of Uzbek participants, regional cultural contexts that ought to temper uncritical adoption of internationalized policies.

Several limitations should be acknowledged within this study. First, we have relied on social science researchers’ perspectives in understanding how and in what ways higher education research ethics policy can or should develop within Central Asia. Future research to explore the views of other stakeholders, for example policy makers or university administrators, would provide an additional lens on this topic.

Recruiting additional participants, particularly from regional areas of all three countries, would provide a more comprehensive picture, and including the other Central Asian countries of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan remains a very interesting possibility for further study. Although this project employed a mixed method design, the quantitative survey did not address the research question addressed in this article.

Conclusion

While the comparative study of social research ethics is still in its infancy, there are strong reasons to take an interest in how policies are developed, adopted or adapted. First, there is a lengthy history of regulation developed for biomedical research in the United States displacing other approaches to ethical research. It would be hard to describe ethics imperialism as ethical; so, the displacement of one country’s approaches to ethics by another in the name of globalization and internationalization ought to be highlighted and resisted. Unreflexive adoption of approaches to research developed in the Global North can pose an unconscionable risk to participants in another context. Equally, it would be a triumph of romanticism to imagine that local ethical approaches, no matter how rich, can be uncovered fully formed and applied to contemporary research agendas. Instead, the growth of reflective ethical thinking about research might be consciously fostered as part of growing commitment to democratisation and human rights. A nuanced position is preferable to the binary opposition of adoption or cultural uniqueness.

Second, if ethical research practices are to be encouraged, it is important to understand the pre-conditions for achieving this. Even when they have been happy with the content of ethics codes and guidelines, researchers in many countries have complained about the administrative burden and cognitive dissonance associated with a bureaucratic system that emphasises compliance over ethics.

To some extent, the context within which approaches to research ethics are developing in Central Asia is unique. Imperial ambitions and bureaucracy have particular Soviet and post-Soviet histories in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. However, the experiences of each of the countries in our study may also reflect some of the ways Middle-Income Countries can struggle to develop a coherent approach to social research ethics. Despite progressive investment in human capital and research infrastructure in some parts of the region, Central Asian researchers remain on the periphery of global knowledge production. Few parts of the Central Asian research ecosystem have proved to have the capability to create ethical guidance for social researchers; there are no national documents on research ethics and where stronger research institutions run ethics review processes, they have been imported by research managers from or with postgraduate experience in the Global North, and the United States in particular.

There is little agreement among researchers in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan about what social research ethics and its review should look like, although there are differences in emphasis between each country that reflect their varied histories of engaging with the Russian and Soviet state, their experiences of post-Soviet authoritarian rule and democratisation as well as the access of researchers to international education and global research networks. Some researchers might express faith in international ethical principles, or at least more faith in that than what might be produced by regional, national or local institutions. However, many are well aware of the difficulties that social researchers have faced in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom and remain wary of how local bureaucracies might deploy ethics review.

Central Asian research and higher education policy could and should support culturally relevant research ethics built on two-way learning between research stakeholders in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and different parts of the global research systems. At the very least, Central Asian communities and their researchers should be partners in research knowledge production within their countries, rather than being seen as primary raw materials for harvesting by external researchers. We are not alone in arguing these countries could craft research ethics policies that will enhance their achievement of strategic priorities, protect the welfare of participants and respect the socio-cultural contexts of each country.

In order to move forward with research ethics policy development, foundational work is needed to enrich the quality of discussion that will shape policy. In this light, we recommend all three countries start by prioritizing professional development for researchers by mandating research ethics education within higher education studies. It is vital to avoid reducing ethics to regulatory compliance; instead, research ethics needs to be part of a capacity-building process to stimulate research of value to Central Asia.