Academic staff in Kazakhstani universities are hired through a competitive selection process, followed by an employment contract. Alongside the basic qualification requirements – education, academic degree and length of academic and teaching experience – the terms of the competition and the contract increasingly include specific publication targets. Meeting them can affect not only successful entry to the position, but also whether the employment relationship with the university is later renewed.
How do publications become a condition of the employment contract?
Competitive appointment to academic positions in Kazakhstani universities takes place under the “Model Regulations on the Activity of Higher and/or Postgraduate Education Organisations”, approved by Order No. 595 of the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated 30 October 2018. Under these regulations, each university independently develops, approves and ensures compliance with its own rules for the competitive appointment of academic staff – within the framework of the Labour Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 23 November 2015 No. 414-V and the Law “On Education” of 27 July 2007.
The general conditions remain uniform across universities:
- a higher or postgraduate degree,
- an academic degree,
- an academic title and a set length of academic and teaching experience
Specific publication targets, however, are determined by each university independently, set out in its internal rules for competitive appointment and included as a corresponding clause in the employment contract.
University requirements in the competition for academic positions
In practice, some universities supplement the basic qualification requirements with their own criteria. For example, S.D. Asfendiyarov Kazakh National Medical University, when announcing a competition for the position of associate professor and lecturer, set a condition of publishing at least one scientific article in a journal with a non-zero impact factor according to Journal Citation Reports, or in a Scopus-indexed journal with a CiteScore percentile of at least 25. The Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations and World Languages, for its part, requires candidates for the position of professor to have at least five years of full-time experience as an associate professor (dotsent).
Conditions of this kind are set not by a nationwide act but by the internal regulations of a particular university, so it is worth checking them directly in the competition announcement before submitting documents.
How many publications are needed for associate professor and professor?
Beyond the terms of a specific employment contract, publication targets are also linked to the conferment of an academic title, which in many universities serves as the basis for holding the corresponding position. Under the rules for the conferment of academic titles, a candidate for the title of associate professor (dotsent) or professor must confirm the following:
- At least 14 scientific articles (excluding abstracts) in the relevant field, published after the defence of the doctoral thesis, including at least 10 in journals recommended by the authorised body.
- At least 2 articles in international peer-reviewed journals – quartile 1-3 according to Web of Science, or a CiteScore percentile of at least 35 in Scopus.
- A monograph recommended by the university's academic council – this condition may not apply where the candidate has additional publications in top-quartile journals.
These figures form the minimum baseline that universities draw on when setting the terms of the employment contract and the criteria for contract renewal.
What makes it harder to meet publication conditions
It is also worth taking into account the requirements placed on the university's educational activity as a whole. Since 12 March 2024, qualification requirements for higher and postgraduate education organisations have been in force, under which anyone providing academic supervision must have at least three years of academic and teaching experience and at least two articles in an international peer-reviewed journal with an impact factor. This indirectly increases the pressure on universities when selecting academic supervisors, and is reflected in the publication conditions of academic staff employment contracts.
When preparing for a competition or contract renewal, authors often run into the following difficulties:
- publishing in a journal not included on the list of publications recommended by the authorised body
- a mismatch between the article's topic and the profile of the department or degree programme
- underestimating peer-review timelines when planning a publication ahead of a competition deadline
- missing a transliterated reference list or an English-language abstract, both required under publication standards
Taking these factors into account in advance reduces the risk of failing to meet the terms of the employment contract.
Publication requirements in academic staff employment contracts reflect the broader direction of development for Kazakhstani universities – strengthening research output while retaining a competitive hiring mechanism. Their exact composition is shaped not only by the model qualification requirements but also by the internal regulations of each particular university, so it is worth checking the current conditions directly with the university before submitting documents.
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