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Article

Higher education and sustainable creative
cities: The development of creative and
cultural ecosystems in the (new) capital city
of Kazakhstan

Industry and Higher Education
2024, Vol. 38(1) 51–63
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/09504222231222258
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Sana Kim  and Roberta Comunian 
King’s College London, UK

Abstract
This article examines the role creative and cultural higher education plays in the top-down development of Astana – the
new capital of Kazakhstan. Drawing on a mapping of higher education institutions in Kazakhstan’s old (Almaty) and new
capital cities as well as qualitative interview data with creative and cultural practitioners, academics and policymakers, we
explore the complex relationship between the development of higher education infrastructure and the broader development of the local creative and cultural ecosystem of the new capital. By exploring challenges and opportunities surrounding these developments within the new capital city, we draw some insight regarding the sustainable development of
higher education and the creative and cultural ecosystem more broadly. We find that creative and cultural higher education
plays an essential role in the development of the new capital city and its opportunity to lead as a creative and cultural capital.
In turn, we argue that creative and cultural HE development cannot happen in isolation but needs to be planned and carried
out as part of the more comprehensive creative and cultural ecosystem development, reinforcing the local creative and
cultural economy and being shaped by it. It also needs to be seen as a long-term development strategy rather than a shortterm solution to jump ahead in urban hierarchies. However, we warn that wider political influences may hinder the
development of a genuinely independent creative and cultural higher education system.
Keywords
Creative and cultural ecosystem, creative and cultural industries, higher education, Kazakhstan, sustainability

Introduction
The role of higher education (HE) in cities has been widely
researched and acknowledged (Wiewel and Perry, 2015). In
particular, there have been reflections on its role in relation
to local and regional development (Shaw and Allison, 1999)
but also on its importance in promoting innovation and
industrial growth in nations and regions trying to reposition
themselves on the global map. There is also a range of
resources focusing more specifically on the role that creative
and cultural HE plays and how it develops collaborative
frameworks for the development of local creative and
cultural industries (CCIs) and cities (Comunian and
Gilmore, 2016). However, this research has tended to focus on the Global North and investigate long-term established synergies between the presence of established higher
education institutions (HEIs) and their local economies.
Research from peripheral regions and the Global South is
much scarcer. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the lack

of attention towards creative and cultural economies
research and policy in developing regions; secondly, the
slow investment of peripheral regions in HE infrastructure
towards arts and creative and cultural subjects, where
preference towards STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) has been an established framework
instead (Comunian et al., 2020).
Therefore, despite the flourishing of research concerning HE and CCIs in the last decade, there are still
important research gaps to address. Using the case study
of Kazakhstan and drawing from extensive independent
fieldwork there between 2016 and 2017, the paper provides a series of in-depth reflections on the complex

Corresponding author:
Sana Kim, Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries
(CMCI), King’s College London, The Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK,
Email: [email protected]

52
interconnections between creative and cultural HEIs and
capital cities.
The paper aims to make two contributions specifically.
First, we aim to provide an insight into the creative and
cultural HE infrastructure of Kazakhstan, a country that –
despite its critical central position across Europe and East
Asia – has struggled to find its voice and identity after the
collapse of the USSR (Kim and Comunian, 2020). An
instrumental project within Kazakhstan’s nation-building
agenda is the construction of a new capital city – Astana
(Anacker, 2004; Koch, 2012; Wolfel, 2002). Therefore, the
second contribution of this paper is that it offers a unique
opportunity to explore the role HE plays in the top-down
development of a new political and cultural capital city but
also what challenges these kinds of interventions can face.
Due to the specific national and urban policy strategy of
Kazakhstan, in the past 30 years, it is one of the few
countries globally that have strategically moved its capital
city and implemented policy and reforms – across economic, demographic, cultural and educational objectives –
to shape a creative and cultural ecosystem (CCE) (De
Bernard et al., 2021) within the new capital.

Creative and cultural HE and local
development: understanding creative and
cultural ecosystems (CCE)
There is extensive literature highlighting the role that HE
can play in developing local economies (Wiewel and Perry,
2015) and even improving cities’ global ranking. Generally,
it is acknowledged that HE can attract specialised human
capital to a city or region (Storper and Scott, 2009) and that
this creates further spillover effects such as innovation,
start-ups and knowledge co-creation between industry,
policy and HE, which can take place in the form of triple
helix exchanges (Etzkowitz and Zhou, 2017).
In this paper, we focus more specifically on creative and
cultural HE. We define creative and cultural HE – building
on the creative human capital framework of Comunian et al.
(2021) – as the tertiary-level educational infrastructure that
includes subjects connected to the creative economy – “a set
of knowledge-based activities focused on but not limited to
the arts, potentially generating revenues from trade and
intellectual property rights” (UNDP/UNCTAD, 2010 p.13).
Therefore, we cover activities connected to CCIs across
heritage, arts, media and functional creations. The key
themes emerging in this area of research – and highly
relevant to the potential development of Astana as a new
capital city of Kazakhstan – are (1) the attraction and retention of creative human capital; (2) infrastructure and
hubs development and (3) networks and CCE development.
Concerning the attraction and retention of human capital
and, more specifically, creative human capital, there is a

Industry and Higher Education 38(1)
large body of research. Coming mainly from the Global
North context, it highlights the role that HE and creative and
cultural HE plays in shaping the urban environment of cities
in relation to technology and innovation (Florida, 2002), art
schools (Jacobi, 2020) and craft clusters (Comunian and
England 2019). The research and teaching strength of
specific institutions can create an agglomeration of talent
and ideas but also provide highly-skilled creative and
cultural workers for the local economy. As Comunian and
Faggian (2014) demonstrate, this has a strong correlation
with the development of creative cities and regions in the
UK context, for example.
However, the attraction and retention of creative human
capital connect with the broader development of the creative
and cultural infrastructure and hubs in cities (Comunian and
Ashton, 2019). In fact, the presence of academics, researchers and graduates and their concentration is often
connected with the development of collaboration platforms
and opportunities between academia and industry. According to Comunian and Ashton (2019), these can take a
range of different forms, from temporary events to new
studios or shared spaces. These hybrid platforms are essential for the development of new knowledge, skills and
projects, so they have an impact on the potential economic
and creative and cultural development of the city (Gill et al.,
2019; Comunian and Faggian, 2014).
Finally, the presence of creative and cultural HE – as both
specialised infrastructure and human capital – is by many
considered pivotal for sustainable CCE. De Bernard et al.
(2021) and Kim (2022) use the CCE framework to reflect
the way CCIs and their localities develop as a complex
system (Comunian, 2019) relying on networks, interactions,
feedback and non-linearity to develop. HE is at the core,
embedded within complex networks and relations with their
CCE. The movement of people and ideas across scales
(from individuals to institutions to regions and countries)
allows for new emergent ideas, products/services, and institutions. It is essential, therefore, to consider reinforcing
relationships between local HE and local CCE, including
clusters and hubs. However, it is also important to consider
the potential evolutionary nature of these ecosystems, which
often remains non-linear, therefore, hard to predict or engineer (Comunian, 2019).

Research context
Kazakhstan: Nation building and creative and
cultural economy
First, we offer a brief historical background to Kazakhstan’s
national and urban development over the past 30 years (see
also Kim and Comunian, 2020). Following the dissolution
of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan embarked on a
nation- and identity-building journey through the unfamiliar

Kim and Comunian
waters of the market economy. Generally, Kazakhstan’s
nation-building efforts rest on two – somewhat conflicting –
ideological pillars: “Eurasianism” and “Kazakhification”
(Koch, 2012). While the state has aspired to brand itself as
the “Gateway to Eurasia” – a cosmopolitan country at the
junction of Europe and Asia – it simultaneously pursued
(ethnonationalist) policies that facilitate the processes of
Kazakhification (Kim and Comunian, 2020). An instrumental project within this nation-building agenda of the
state was the construction of a new capital city – Astana –
which was envisioned to become the physical manifestation
of Kazakhstan’s new identity (Anacker, 2004; Koch, 2012;
Wolfel, 2002).
In 1994, Nursultan Nazarbayev – who served as president from 1990 until 2019 – announced that Kazakhstan
would have a new capital city – Akmola (later renamed
Astana1). By the end of 1997, he would realise this ambition. At the time, Akmola was a small town. It had not
experienced any major development until the mid-1950s
when Nikita Khrushchev initiated the Virgin Lands campaign, which sought to transform the northern steppe of
Kazakhstan into a major agricultural district of the Soviet
Union.
Nazarbayev (2006) gave several practical reasons to
justify his decisions, including the relative depopulation of
the country’s northern territories and the fact that a capital
should have a central location away from external borders.
Although this fact is not listed as one of the official reasons,
reclaiming Kazakhstan’s northern territories in the eyes of
Russia is generally understood as a crucial geo-political
motivation behind the capital relocation by academics
(Koch, 2012) and the general public alike. In light of
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in retrospect, this motivation
gained a new level of legitimacy. In addition to more
practical reasons, Nazarbayev (2006, 2010) also acknowledged the symbolic role of Astana for the entire
nation. He writes, “I was certain that the movement of the
capital city would play a big role in validating Kazakhstan
as an independent state” (Nazarbayev, 2010: p. 25).
Almaty – a capital city inherited from the Soviet Union –
was far from an ideal capital city contender for independent
Kazakhstan symbolically as its cityscape transcended its
colonial and Soviet heritage – everything the state wanted to
disconnect with.
After the relocation of the capital city, the CCE of
Kazakhstan’s new and former capital cities have followed
different developmental trajectories (Kim, 2022). After
becoming the poster child for Kazakhstan’s new identity,
Astana became subjected to the scrutiny of the national
government, which took a very hands-on approach to
managing the city’s life, including its culture. Consequently,
Astana has gradually become a cradle of the so-called
“official culture”, where classical and traditional/ethnic
forms of creativity and culture are heavily supported and

53
therefore proliferate (Kim, 2022). In contrast, Almaty,
having handed over its official status as the capital, experienced a significant loosening of the state’s control, which
possibly stimulated vibrancy in its independent creative and
cultural development including underground and avantgarde creative and cultural forms. Whereas the development of the CCIs in Astana was largely top-down (orchestrated and supported by the state), in Almaty this
development was unfolding in a more organic/bottom-up
manner.

Kazakhstan education policies and reforms
The education system in the Republic of Kazakhstan is built
on the principle of continuity and succession of general
educational and educational programmes and includes
seven levels: preschool education and training; primary
education; basic secondary education; secondary education
(general secondary education or technical and vocational
education2); post-secondary education; HE; and postgraduate education (Law “On Education,” Article 12, 2015).
Compulsory education starts with primary education (at sixseven years of age) and ends with (general) secondary
education (typically by 17 years of age). Tertiary education
includes post-secondary education as well as undergraduate
and postgraduate HE.
By 2015, across Kazakhstan, 131 institutions provided
HE (MoES, 2016), 12 of which were in the capital city,
Astana (of which 6 were privately owned), and 42 (of which
20 were private) were situated in Almaty (Ibid.). This
number decreased to 128 universities in 2020 (IAC, 2020)
as a result of the work of the Ministry of Education and
Science (MoES) to improve the quality of HE by eliminating substandard private universities (Ibid.). Evidently,
Almaty and Astana each benefit from more universities than
any other city or region in Kazakhstan. By 2018, Almaty
and Astana had accumulated 43 and 17 HEIs, respectively
(IAC, 2019).
Out of all HEIs in Kazakhstan, 10 had a special status –
National Organisation of Higher/Postgraduate Education
(MoES, 2016). Initially, this status was designated to nine
HEIs in 2001 as part of wider HE reforms to promote institutional autonomy (Hartley et al., 2016). HEIs with this
status could now develop their own admission guidelines,
issue their own diplomas and, more importantly, gain more
authority over developing/designing their own curriculum.
Additionally, these institutions could now offer better pay
for academic staff and more generous scholarships for
students (Ibid.). However, the institutional autonomy of
other HEIs across Kazakhstan continues to be limited to this
day, with MoES remaining the central body leading and
regulating the sector (Hartley et al., 2016; Huisman, 2019;
Monobayeva and Howard, 2015). This lack of autonomy
among HEIs in Kazakhstan and the centralised nature of HE

54
more broadly has been attributed to various legacies of the
country’s Soviet past ranging from pre-existing structures/
procedures within the sector, such as rigid funding mechanisms and administrative separateness between research
and teaching to cultural norms (or “frame of mind” as
Yergebekov and Temirbekova (2012) put it) of academic
leaders (Hartley et al., 2016).
Kazakhstan’s leadership – the former autocrat Nazarbayev, in particular – has attached a lot of significance to
the role of education in the country’s development (Hartley
et al., 2016). Since the dawn of independence, the state has
implemented various measures to reform its HE. For instance, Kazakhstan was one of the first Central Asian
countries to sign the Lisbon Convention in 1999 and was
involved in the OECD/World Bank (2007) review of its
education system (Huisman, 2019). In 2010, Kazakhstan
joined the Bologna Process, which has become a driving
force as well as a symbol of the internationalisation of HE in
Kazakhstan (Sparks et al., 2015). Key aims behind adopting
Bologna included: increasing access to EU education,
improving the quality of local education, and increasing
academic mobility of staff and students by implementing
comparable systems of degrees (Monobayeva and Howard,
2015). Additionally, in 2010, the MoES put forward the
State Programme for Educational Development (SPED)
2011-2020, articulating new objectives aimed at improving
the quality of education. In terms of HE, a particular emphasis is made on internationalisation, specifically on
“integration into European higher education space” and on
“integration of education, science and industry” by increasing the capacity of academic staff for facilitating
industrial-innovative development of Kazakhstan (MoES,
2010 p.3). Despite the willingness for change, so far, Kazakhstan has struggled to make the reforms work, and as a
result, the performance of local universities has remained
low (Yembergenova et al., 2021).
Consequently, those who can afford to do so prefer
foreign institutions to acquire their HE. The total number of
mobile students abroad was estimated at 90,333 (including
265 students in Chinese universities) (UNESCO, 2023).
Over the years, Russia has remained the most popular
destination, hosting 59,295 students from Kazakhstan in
2015 (UNESCO, 2017) and 71,368 more recently
(UNESCO, 2023). With a wide margin, other popular
destinations to date are Turkey (2349 students), Kyrgyzstan
(2178), Czechia (2027) USA (1994), UK (1288), Poland
(1172) and Germany (1143) (Ibid.).
The citizens of Kazakhstan also have an opportunity to
acquire a postgraduate education (MA or PhD) via Bolashak
International Scholarship – a government programme established in 1993 that offers Kazakhstanis the possibility to
pursue HE abroad. Bolashak is one of the first reforms
within HE in independent Kazakhstan designed to “address
the economic and state-building challenges that affected the

Industry and Higher Education 38(1)
country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, such as the
crisis of educational sector and severe brain drain, as well as
the need to put the newly independent state on the world
map” (Del Sordi, 2018 p.216).

Creative and Cultural Higher Education
(Undergraduate and Postgraduate)
Four of the National Organisation of Higher/Postgraduate
Education directly represent creative and cultural education
and set the standards and agendas for national education in
the creative and cultural fields, two of them are based in
Almaty and two in Astana.
The Kazakh National Conservatory, named after
Kurmangazy (KazNC) was founded in 1944 in Almaty,
which makes it the first HEI to prepare creative and
cultural cadres in Kazakhstan. The conservatory offers
undergraduate as well as postgraduate degrees and is
comprised of four faculties: Musicology and Management; Instrumental Performing; Vocal Art and Conducting; and Folk Music. Also in Almaty, founded in
1978, is the Kazakh National Academy of Arts named
after T. Zhurgenov (KazNAA) (developed from a smaller
drama faculty of KazNC that had existed since 1955). The
academy is one of the most prestigious art schools in
Kazakhstan, educating some of the most influential
Kazakhstani artists. KazNAA operates as a college (a
specialised boarding school for artistically gifted children) and a university. The HE division of KazNAA
consists of six faculties, offering at least 21 creative and
cultural specialisations in 2017: Faculty of Theatre Arts
(including degrees in scenography, costume design, stage
speech and callisthenics); Faculty of Cinema and TV; Art
History (including separate degrees in history of cinema
and theatre); Choreography (including degrees in directing and teaching); Painting, Sculpture and Design;
and Musical art (including specialisations in traditional
music).
Founded more recently (2009) in Astana is the Kazakh
National University of Arts (KazNUA) building on the
basis of the Kazakh National Academy of Music, which
was founded in 1998 following the initiative of the
president. The main reason behind the university’s establishment in Astana is to supply the new capital and the
Northern part of Kazakhstan with highly qualified professional cadres, which in turn would “enrich domestic
culture with new achievements in the field of arts”
(KazNUA, 2017). The institution had initially only
prepared music professionals, but gradually it has expanded. By 2017, the university offered undergraduate
and postgraduate degrees across four faculties and
18 specialisations; this provision has expanded further.
By 2022 the university incorporated eight faculties: Art;

Kim and Comunian
Cinema and Television; Musicology and Piano; Orchestra
Performing; Social and Humanitarian Courses and Art
Management; Theatrical Art and Art History; Folk/
Traditional Musical Art; and Vocal-choral, Variety Art
and Music Education.
Finally, one of the latest additions to Kazakhstan’s HE
infrastructure (founded in 2015 in Astana) is the Kazakh
National Academy of Choreography (KazNAC) – the first
HEI in Central Asia that provides a full cycle of multilevel
professional choreographic education (from primary to
postgraduate levels of education). KazNAC offers HE
degrees in the following specialisations: Choreographic Art
Pedagogy, Pedagogy of Sports Ballroom Dance; Art
Management; Art Studies; and Choreographic Dance.
Many other universities also supply creative and cultural
HE via specialised faculties and departments. According to
a UNESCO report, 48 institutions all over Kazakhstan
provided higher professional training in “art specialities”
[khudozhestvennyye spetsial’nosti] in 2010 (Isimbayeva,
2010). In 2017 we identified 31 institutions that provide one
or more undergraduate and/or postgraduate programmes in
creative and cultural subjects in Almaty (22) and Astana (9)
alone.
Very few Kazakhstanis seem to pursue a creative and
cultural degree. According to official statistics, in 2015,
from all postgraduate students (32,170), only 499 (approx.
1.5%) were studying towards a degree in the arts [iskusstvo]
(IAC, 2016). This is understandable, given the low income
of creative and cultural workers and the small size of the
local labour market. For example, in 2015, the average
monthly nominal wages of workers across all sectors in
Kazakhstan was KZT 126,021 (approx. £3243), while
wages of those employed within “the arts, entertainment and
recreation” sectors received on average KZT 95,210 (approx. £244) (IAC, 2016). Furthermore, around
133,000 people were employed in the arts, entertainment
and recreation, in 2017, representing about 1.6% of the total
employed population (Ministry of National Economy,
2017).
In 2015, 2110 students were studying aboard via the
Bolashak programme, but only 13 of them were pursuing a
degree in the arts. The overwhelming majority were
studying social sciences, economics and management (862),
as well as technical sciences and technologies (677) (IAC,
2016). According to more recent statistics, more than half of
the Bolashak scholarship holders studied humanities (from
2016 to 2019), and only one per cent of the grant recipients
studied “culture and art” (IAC, 2019).

Methodology
This paper emerged from two research projects: a research
project commissioned by the British Council Kazakhstan
and independent fieldwork as part of a PhD project. Data

55
from these two projects inform the present inquiry towards
the formulation of these two specific research questions:
What role does creative and cultural HE play in the development of Astana’s CCE? What challenges and opportunities surround the creative and cultural development
of the new capital city?
First, a project titled “Skills Gaps and Shortages in the
Cultural Sector in Kazakhstan”, aimed to provide the
British Council with a contextual overview of Kazakhstan’s
creative and cultural sector. It included data on the sector
landscape (policy, funding, growth, etc.), creative and
cultural education (availability of technical arts training,
apprenticeships, etc.) and the socio-economic context to
develop a greater understanding of the skills gaps and labour
shortages affecting CCIs of Kazakhstan’s two major cities –
Almaty and Astana. It aimed to inform the development of
new educational programmes by the British Council Kazakhstan that would tackle the existing skills gaps and
shortages (for a summary of the research see Kim and
Goncharova, 2017). This project was carried out in 2017
(between January and June) and involved extensive deskbased research, which included a mapping of creative and
cultural HE infrastructure in Almaty and Astana.
The present paper draws specifically on the mapping
exercise, which involved a review of a wide range of relevant materials (both primary and secondary), ranging from
city guides, governmental and educational institutions’
websites, as well as other digital and published sources such
as key policy documents, national and local government
reports, and official statistics. After collating a list of all
HEIs in Astana and Almaty, we reviewed all the available, at
the time, courses and built a database of creative and cultural
HE courses available across both cities. To shortlist the socalled creative and cultural courses, we used a taxonomy put
forward by UNCTAD (2004), which functionally classified
CCIs into four groups and nine subgroups: heritage (cultural
sites and traditional cultural expressions), arts (visual and
performing), media (publishing and printed media, audiovisuals, new media) and functional creations (design and
other creative services). We also included Art and Cultural
management courses, which do not fit the typology. Cultural
studies courses were categorised under the cultural sites
subgroup.
As a result, we produced a list of 35 available institutions
that provided the necessary (both higher and further/
vocational) education to enter creative and cultural careers professionally in Almaty (26 institutions, four out of
which provide vocational degrees only) and Astana (9 institutions). The results may be subject to omissions and
inaccuracies. It proved challenging to produce a conclusive
representation of the creative and cultural HE infrastructure
of the two cities, due to the poor digital presence of many
HEIs, at the time. Specifically, we found that (prepandemic) HEIs often did not offer up-to-date lists of

56
available programmes online. The mapping has not been
updated since 2017. Despite limitations, and due to the lack
of comprehensive official statistics on creative and cultural
HE infrastructure, this mapping is still valuable as it sheds
light on how creative and cultural HE adapts following
major (national and urban) policy shifts.
Second, this paper builds on the interview data collected
as part of a PhD project, which investigated the impacts of
the capital city relocation upon the subsequent creative and
cultural development of Almaty and Astana. Overall, we
conducted 48 face-to-face interviewees, 25 in Almaty and
23 in Astana. These include interviews with cultural policymakers both at regional and national levels, as well as
creative and cultural practitioners. Some of the interviewees
were also affiliated with different HEIs as academic staff in
various creative and cultural disciplines, which enabled
them to provide insight into the provision of HE. Stratified
purposive sampling (Patton, 1990) proved to be the most
appropriate technique for this largely qualitative inquiry. To
identify research practitioners, we adopted the UNCTAD
(2004) classification, introduced above. Within the UNCTAD taxonomy, we also differentiated between public,
commercial, and non-profit/informal domains of culture4.
As a result, our sample included respondents from four
groups of CCIs: heritage, the arts, media and functional
creations.
We applied thematic analysis to identify commonalities
in the accounts of the interviewees (Braun and Clarke,
2006). Since the intention here is to focus specifically on
the development of creative and cultural HE, for this paper,
we draw more from HE-related discussions of our interviews. Coding followed a blended approach (Graebner
et al., 2012) also known as abduction (Alvesson and
Kärreman, 2007), combining inductive and deductive elements. Starting coding inductively first ensured ‘closeness’
to the data (Linneberg and Korsgaard, 2019) and allowed
codes to emerge from the bottom up as no codebook or
template of codes was developed a priori. The deductive
element, on the other hand, ensured that the coding and
analysis process stayed within the boundaries of our
research question. In other words, the first round of coding
remained ‘informant-centric’ and generated descriptive
codes, while the second round was ‘researcher-centric’,
generating sub-themes that were more analytical in nature
and reflective of patterns in the data in relation to the
research questions.

Developing a new creative and cultural HE
ecosystem: Challenges and opportunities
for Astana
To understand the changes and development that have taken
place in Astana, it is important to first map the Kazakh

Industry and Higher Education 38(1)
creative and cultural HE infrastructure, highlighting the
shift in investment towards the establishment of a new
creative and cultural HE ecosystem in the new capital.
Building on this mapping and specifically the institutional
and historical profile of the two cities of Almaty and Astana,
the paper then considers the specific challenges and opportunities that the city of Astana had to face to become the
designated capital. In particular, we look at how these
challenges and opportunities are connected with three
crucial themes in the literature: urban competition and
ecosystem development; the role of migration and human
capital accumulation; and the challenges of fulfilling
knowledge gaps. Finally, we consider that overall, there are
shared challenges for Astana and Almaty linked to broader
creative and cultural policy changes needed in Kazakhstan.

Evolving HE and CCE: Comparing Almaty
and Astana
This section gives an overview of Almaty and Astana’s
creative and cultural HE offerings across UNCATD’s
(2004) nine subgroups. Table 1 summarises the key providers and courses. Notably, while now the two cities
present a comparable and varied offer, Almaty’s offer has
developed over nearly a century (Abai Kazakh National
Pedagogical University, founded in 1928, is the oldest
university in Almaty and Kazakhstan) while in Astana its
was largely absent until mid the mid-1990s (with the exception of Kazakh Agrotechnical University named after
S.Seifullin, which was founded in 1957).

Challenges of establishing an ecosystem
and competition
Despite the heavy financial investment made by the
government in developing Astana’s creative and cultural
HE (Koch, 2014) as one worthy of a global capital city,
Almaty’s HE remains seen as more prestigious because of
its historical profile and strengths. Over the past two
centuries, Almaty has managed to accumulate a great
variety of creative and cultural HEIs, which play a vital
role in the universal development of its CCE (Comunian
and Faggian, 2014). In addition to simply building up
more options for creative and cultural programmes in
HEIs, over the years, certain Almaty-based institutions
have also accumulated an established reputation and
prestige that continues to benefit the entire ecosystem,
which the brand-new ones in Astana are reportedly still
lacking. This, allows the HEIs of the former capital to
keep their admission standards high, which in turn acts as
a point of attraction for “better” students (who eventually
turn into high-skilled workers and who are more likely to
settle in the city), as suggested by this experienced

Kim and Comunian

57

Table 1. Overview of key providers of creative and cultural HE in Almaty and Astana by creative education field based on UNCATC
(2004). Source: Authors’ own.
Groups of CCIs

Astana

Almaty

Cultural sites

6 HE programmes across 3 HEIs: KazNUA, eurasian
national university (ENU), nazarbayev university

11 HE programmes across 4 HEIs: Al-farabi Kazakh
national university (KazNU), Kazakh state Women’s
pedagogical university (KazSWPU), Kazakh university
of international relations and world languages named
after Abylai khan (KazUIRWL) and Kazakh academy of
labour and social relations (KazALSR)
3 programmes across 2 HEIs: KazSWPU and KazNAA

Traditional cultural 1 programme provided by KazNUA
expressions
Visual arts
2 programmes provided by KazNUA

Performing arts

Publishing and
printed media

Audiovisuals
Design

New media

Creative services
Art management

6 programmes across 4 HEIs: KazNAA, Almaty university
(symbat academy of design and technology), Abai
Kazakh national pedagogical university and KazSWPU
12 programmes across KazNUA and KazNAC
24 programmes across 5 HEIs: KazNC, KazNAA, Almaty
university (symbat academy of design and technology),
Abai Kazakh national pedagogical university and
KazSWPU
8 programmes including 1 in publishing across: Turan- 20 HE programmes including 10 in literature, 9 in
journalism and 1 publishing degree (KazNU) across 13
astana university, nazarbayev university, university
Astana, ENU and eurasian humanities institute
HEIs: KazNU, Turan university, international IT
university, KIMEP university, KAINAR university,
university of foreign languages and professional career,
Almaty university (symbat academy of design and
technology) Caspian university, Kazakh American
university (KAU), Abai Kazakh national pedagogical
university, KazSWPU, university of international
Business (UIB) and KazUIRWL
4 programmes by KazNUA
7 programmes across: KazNAA and Turan university
17 programmes across 9 HEIs: KazNAA, Kazakh leading
6 programmes across: KazNUA, Turan-Astana
academy of architecture and civil engineering
university, university Astana, ENU, Kazakh
(KazLAACE), KazNU, Almaty technical university,
Agrotechnical university named after S.Seifullin and
Kazakh national research technical university named
Kazakh university of economics, finance and
after K.I. Satpayev (KazNRTU), Almaty university
international trade (KazUEFMT)
(symbat academy of design and technology), caspian
university, Abai Kazakh national pedagogical university
and eurasian university of technology
While there were several programmes in software engineering and ICT in both cities, we did not identify any
programmes that specifically focused on production of digitalised creative and cultural content (such as for
example videogames) that have not been already accounted for in other subcategories
3 programmes across: Kazakh Agrotechnical university 4 programmes across: KazNAA, KazLAACE, KazNRTU
named after S.Seifullin and ENU
and caspian university
2 programmes across: KazNAA and KazNAC
1 programme by Kazakh national conservatory named
after kurmangazy

university worker from one of the leading creative and
cultural HEIs in Almaty:

there are simply fewer people living there, and everyone gets
accepted.

Alternatives arose in Astana in terms of education […]. Nevertheless, competition is a good thing. Half of our teachers
went to work there [a HEI in Astana], now we are competing
with them, but so far, training at our school is much better. This
is because we have existed for 50 years – half a century – and
they for only 15. Plus, […] here we have the opportunity to
choose from a large number of students. They come and we
always have competition. There is no competition in Astana,

Therefore, it is clear that for an emerging capital city, it is
hard to break the accumulated cultural/symbolic capital
(Townley et al., 2009) that Almaty displays and break the
path dependency that this has created (Kim and Comunian,
2020). While it is clear that investing in the HE infrastructure is an important key ingredient towards establishing
a sustainable creative city, this needs to be seen as a longterm investment, not as a short-term solution.

58

Industry and Higher Education 38(1)

The role of migration and human
capital accumulation
A unique aspect of Astana’s development is the tremendous
speed at which the city’s CCE has been developing. This
development required many cadres to appear in the city on
relatively short notice. However, unlike the build-up of
physical infrastructure that may occur relatively quickly, the
accumulation (or repurposing) of local labour usually takes
much longer (Comunian and England, 2018). Therefore,
inbound migration from all over Kazakhstan and beyond
has played an essential role in Astana’s development
(Tatibekov et al., 2008). In addition to speedy career progression prospects, inbound migration was facilitated by
various housing schemes, which provided specific categories of citizens – particularly the government and the
public sector workers – with subsidised housing
(Bissenova, 2012).
However, driven by the speed of the creative and cultural
infrastructure development, various positions in Astana’s
CCE occasionally were filled with professionals short on
work experience, often attracted from Almaty itself. This is
evident from the following interview account by a director
of a public theatre in Astana:
In 1997, they hired me as a director. That year, we, graduates of
the acting department [from an arts school in Almaty], were all
hired here. The full course. When everyone received their diplomas, they were immediately taken here […] When the entire
course arrived, they were able to assemble a whole corpus of
40 actors and began to stage plays. In 1997, 1998 and 1999, we
took 3 courses here in a row, but not all of them stayed here […].
The backbone of our theatre are these people – those students.
This is the core of our theatre. They are not young anymore;
they are mature now.

The government clearly anticipated these labour shortages
as it founded several major HE institutions in Astana – (ENU
in 1996 and KazNUA in 1998) – soon after independence. In
an interview, a policymaker explained that the Kazakh National Academy of Music (now KazNUA), was deliberately
founded to deal with the vacuum of talent that was anticipated
immediately after the relocation: “The university opened up to
fill the void by immediately preparing specialists in the sphere
of culture”. However, these universities struggled to expand
organically in such a short amount of time as another senior
academic in Astana reports:
When the capital relocated here, we started inviting famous
academics with their schools [departments] with their students! Because the university could not progress this fast in
such a short period of time. So many moved with their schools,
but not only from Almaty, they moved from Karaganda and
other cities.

Therefore, migration and talent attraction were important
not only in relation to creative and cultural workers but also
the creative and cultural HE infrastructure development. In
fact, many of our interviewees in Astana positioned within
the public sphere the ecosystem (especially those affiliated
with an HEI), had received subsidised housing through their
workplace or the state housing programme:
The rector then said – stay here […], I will give you the department […] [to lead and] straight away I will give you a key
to your new flat. I was like – Unbelievable! […] Then I asked
him to show me the flat. I checked it out; it was a decent twobedroom flat. So, I promised to move in a couple of months.

Some of the Almaty-based interviewees also reported
being offered appealing housing arrangements if they
agreed to relocate to Astana to fill a specific position in the
public sector. These offers, however, were not available to
everyone. This is clear from the following account offered
by an Almaty-based cultural studies lecturer reflecting on
the importance of remaining within Almaty’s CCE as opposed to moving as an individual – even if it meant giving
up the opportunity to enhance one’s economic capital:
I was offered a flat, so I was considering moving. But the rest of
my school, my students were not offered anything. […] So, I
didn’t want to go by myself and stayed here. One person in the
field is not a warrior [Russian proverb similar to: there is safety
is in numbers]. I don’t regret it. Even though I am from Astana
originally, Almaty has become a home to me.

Whereas in Almaty, the capital swap resulted in a loss of
human capital from its CCE, in Astana, the same event
caused an accumulation of creative human capital. However, some of the interviews reflected on Astana with the
connotation of “emptiness” to highlight that migration as a
strategy could only work if enough critical mass was created
to develop an ecosystem. Furthermore, despite the state’s
efforts, many Astana-based interviewees (11 out of 22), still
felt a distinct shortage of academic staff affecting creative
and cultural HE. Again, while the literature suggests that
attracting human capital is very valuable and important to
develop local CCE (Florida, 2002), the case study of Astana
highlights that this is no easy policy as even with housing or
other incentives, a city might not be able to attract the right
level or kind of human capital without the correct CCE.

The knowledge gaps, experience and
provision needs
Even if Astana managed to attract relevant professionals and
academics, many research participants expressed that
knowledge/skill gaps were still present. As mentioned

Kim and Comunian
above, often because people in key positions in Astana were
young and lacked experience, forcing them to work on
continuously educating themselves. In fact, in addition to
social capital (the “emptiness” also previously mentioned),
people often found themselves lacking certain professional
skills and knowledge, as highlighted by this Astana-based
media worker: “During this project, I realised that I did not
have enough knowledge. Many things were done by intuition. […] So, I went to study abroad.” This lack of intellectual capital (Townley et al., 2009) appeared to include
the lack of both codified and tacit knowledge, as pointed out
by this senior museum worker from Astana, reflecting on
the main challenges they encounter at the workplace: “The
key challenge would be the lack of staff. […] Even when
cadres come prepared [with education], they still need to be
taught a lot.” Often for these gaps, they would also blame
the locked-in HE system in Kazakhstan, as this art manager
in Astana recalls:
I am not satisfied with the quality of my education … The base
remained from the Soviet period and, in fact, it is not bad. There
are good bits that are useful … But they don’t give a lot of
history. […] There was nothing about contemporary art, absolutely nothing. Since I work more in management today, we
didn’t have any subject that would teach us to write. Critical
thinking was not there. We didn’t have anything that would
require critical thinking in our programme compared to European education.

As a response to this situation, creative and cultural
practitioners and organisations in Astana have taken recourse to self-organisation in the form of intensive training
to develop themselves and their employees “from within”
(Film and video producer; Astana). Reflecting on the lack of
creative and cultural cadres and experts in Astana’s CCE, a
media worker in Astana expressed a desire to open up an
“academy” to address this gap in the future for the media
industries. At the time of the interview, however, they were
addressing this issue internally:
We always carry out advanced training in our team. I myself am
now doing a screenwriting course [ …] In the team, we are also
constantly pumping/upgrading people up too. Recently, a guy
came to us, he went through preparatory courses, and now he is
our employee. In a few days, our operator/director will go to
Moscow for short courses in the theory of light[…] we try to
improve constantly.

These processes are equally present in public cultural
organisations, as highlighted by this Astana-based public
theatre worker:
Young people who previously could only dream about the status
of a prime dancer, or get somewhere near the corps de ballet,

59
which is also not limitless, finally managed to go here and
perform in a worthy theatre. […] Plus, we invited people,
masters from all over the world. […] For our experienced
dancers, designers and directors, it was also a great experience
to work with such people. This, of course, favourably affected
the growth of the professionalism of our domestic performers.

Overall, the ecosystem has continued to evolve around
these skills gaps and input of knowledge and people,
generating new tacit and codified knowledge that, in turn,
translates into the enhanced quality of local production, as
acknowledged by this Almaty-based TV producer:
When I was working [on a project] in Astana, we ordered a lot
of production from Almaty. Back then, the quality of TV production was lame [in Astana]. But now they can film themselves. Production in Astana and Almaty can compete on equal
footing now – in terms of technical support and creative
resources.

People and organisations operating within Astana’s CCE
are also developing the capacity to legitimise their cultural
and artistic value (Townley et al., 2009). Although Almatybased creative and cultural workers often expressed prejudice towards the quality and professionalism of Astana’s
creative and cultural production and workers shortly after
the relocation, a significant change in this attitude could also
be sensed in relation to more recent times. In other words,
Astana’s creative people and HE are gradually improving
their reputation and becoming recognised by the wider
creative and cultural community as a visual artist in Almaty
puts it: “Astana has changed. Before we had this prejudice
due to the prevalence of this official, art.” All this indicates
further that investment in creative HE and creative human
capital is a long-term strategy that requires a long-term
vision and cannot solve structural gaps in knowledge or
skills imminently for a city.

Ecosystem limitations in both Astana and Almaty
In both CCE, we found a range of limitations that, in many
cases, hindered the development of HE across both cities.
For many respondents, HE was still perceived as being
“Soviet”, anchored to historical developments and lock-ins
within the HE sector emerged quite strongly from the data
(across 25 interviews out of 48), including in this account by
an architect and urban activist from Almaty: “I noticed that
many of our higher education institutions in architecture
work according to the norms of the Soviet Union, just simply
copy everything … I would say 80% of our norms are
borrowed.”
This widespread belief about the outdated nature of HE
across creative and cultural disciplines and beyond is
supported by research. For example, Ahn et al. (2018) argue

60

Industry and Higher Education 38(1)

and demonstrate that Soviet legacies are still audible within
the rigid administrative structure of HE in Kazakhstan (in
terms of institutional accountability and reporting), as well
as in pedagogical approaches to teaching, learning and
curriculum. Isimbayeva (2010), assessing Kazakhstan’s
education system specifically across creative and cultural
disciplines, likewise, found educational curriculum and
structure to continue various Soviet traditions, which occasionally fail to address the needs of the contemporary
labour market (e.g., undersupplying creative and cultural
workers whose speciality lies beyond academic styles and
classical genres).
Interviewees (at least 5) from both cities emphasised a
lack of managers in CCIs who would effectively support
creative and cultural production in their respective fields.
Generally, this gap in the context of the entirety of Kazakhstan could be explained by the fact that previously there
was no need for such a profession, as this function was
primarily performed by the state and its workers. Notably,
Astana offers two programmes in art management compared to one in Almaty, perhaps indicating a more severe
shortage of managerial skills in the capital. In the visual arts,
while highlighting the shortage of art managers, several
respondents also stressed a significant lack of specialists like
art curators and critics or, as one interviewee categorised it,
“the whole entourage around creators” (Art gallery manager; Astana). In other words, those whose attention is
understood to create value for the art market (Plattner,
1998). In addition, there appears to be a lack of journalists specialising in covering creative and cultural affairs to
its residents.
Finally, creative and cultural HE was perceived as not
truly independent and particularly in Astana where the
central political control is strongly perceived. As a lecturer
expressed, to participate in Astana’s cultural scene, one
needs to comply with a lot of (formal and informal) restrictions supporting the argument that ruling elites see HE
projects as mechanisms of control (Koch, 2014; Del Sordi,
2018).
In Astana, you cannot talk about many things. [ …] Despite the
fact that there is good funding here, it seems to me that academic freedom is absent, which of course spoils everything. You
can get decent skills, but it is hardly possible to acquire freedom
of thought. Especially in the arts and humanities.

Conclusions
The case study of Astana’s creative and cultural development as a new capital city has provided the unique
opportunity to reflect on the way CCE develop and the
role that creative and cultural HE can play within this
development. We found that creative and cultural HE
plays a central and essential role in the development of

the new capital city and its opportunity to lead as a
creative and cultural capital. We also found that strategic
investment has to take place simultaneously on both
fronts: (1) education and (2) creative and cultural infrastructure development. Furthermore, in relation to the
fact that creative and cultural HE development cannot
happen in isolation but need to be planned and carried out
as part of the wider CCE development, reinforcing the
local creative and cultural economy and being shaped by
its development too, we found that migration plays a key
role. It also needs to happen with a long-term strategy
view and cannot act as a quick solution or option to
disrupt creative cities’ national or international hierarchies. Similarly, migration in itself cannot create a CCE
as time remains necessary for a CCE to develop and grow.
In Almaty, the local creative and cultural HE infrastructure had developed organically over the decades
when the city was the capital of Kazakhstan, enabling the
development of the local workforce and connected CCIs.
In Astana, the initial emphasis was on developing the
creative and cultural infrastructure of the new capital (see
Kim and Comunian, 2020). However, the sustainability
of Astana’s CCE soon depended on attracting and retaining creative and cultural professionals as well as
academics able to supply knowledge, skills and networks
that facilitate professional development in the field. Even
despite the significant investment to facilitate the inbound
migration of creative and cultural practitioners and academics, the lack of networks has meant that the development of Astana as the cultural capital of Kazakhstan
or a global creative city has lagged behind its formal
political and institutional role as the capital city. In other
words, despite the ambitious top-down development of
infrastructure and pool of professionals, various gaps in
provision and expertise remained. Our findings highlight
the significance of self-organisation dynamics in gradually bridging these gaps from the bottom up and the need
for time, networks and bottom-up development to interact
with top-down initiatives to create an established CCE.
Finally, in both cities, we found that the weight of previous cultural and political influences and the lack of
freedom can hinder the development of a genuinely independent creative and cultural educational system;
while Almaty has now become less connected with political agenda and influences as a former capital, Astana
might find more obstacles in this creative and cultural
development as a formal political and creative and cultural capital of Kazakhstan.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

Kim and Comunian
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs
Sana Kim 
Roberta Comunian 

Notes
1. The city – originally called Akmola – changes named several
times reflecting wider political shifts. During the Soviet era it
was known as Akmolinsk and later Tselinograd. As Kazakhstan
gained independence it briefly returned to its original name –
Akmola – before being made capital city and renamed Astana
[translated as “capital city” from the Kazakh language] in 1998.
In March 2019, the city was renamed Nur-Sultan to honour the
outgoing President Nursultan Nazarbayev. However, by 2022,
as the tensions between the ruling elites escalated, the city
would return to its previous name – Astana.
2. Technical and vocational education (optional) is carried out in
specialized schools, colleges and higher colleges on the basis of
(compulsory) basic secondary and/or general secondary
education.
3. Exchange rate as per first half of 2017.
4. The samplings strategy combined the UNCTAD classification of
CCIs – 1) Heritage (Cultural sites arts traditional cultural expressions), 2) Arts (Visual arts and Performing arts), 3) Media:
(Audio-visuals and Publishing/printed media) and 4) Functional
creations (Creative services, Design and New Media) – with the
taxonomy of the four spheres of culture adapted from Holden
(2015) and Markusen et al. (2011). In Astana, we interviewed
13 individuals in the publicly funded cultural sector across the
UNCTAD CCIs categories, in Almaty 7. Across the commercial
cultural sectors, we interviewed 11 in Almaty and 7 in Astana,
finally across the not-for-profit / informal and homemade culture
we interviewed 6 in Almaty and 3 in Astana.

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