(07.07.22) On 14 June, DFG President Prof. Dr. Katja Becker received the Ambassador of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Nabijon Kasimov, at the DFG Head Office in Bonn, accompanied by the country’s attachés for science and industry. The aim of the meeting was to resume talks on expanding scientific cooperation between the DFG and Uzbekistan, which were interrupted for a while due to the pandemic.

The meeting with the DFG President and representatives of the DFG’s International Cooperation department took place as part of a trip by the Uzbek embassy delegation to various science organisations in the region to secure closer ties with German cooperation partners in connection with ongoing reforms of the Uzbek science and education system. In addition to the Ambassador, the delegation also included Second Secretary for Agriculture, Transport & Logistics Noyobjon Akhmadjonov and Third Secretary for Education, Science & Public Health Dr. Mavlon Mamirov. The talks focused on jointly identifying concrete points of reference as well as on how to advance bilateral collaboration in the medium term.

Scientific relations between the DFG and Uzbekistan received a particular impetus for further expansion when the then DFG President Prof. Dr. Peter Strohschneider joined the trip to Uzbekistan undertaken by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in 2019. Following on from this, the Ambassador confirmed the Uzbek scientific community’s desire to intensify contacts at the institutional level, particularly on the part of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences, the country’s leading research institution. The Ambassador invited the DFG President to Uzbekistan to continue this constructive dialogue and conclude cooperation agreements.

The expansion of bilateral cooperation is in the interests of many German researchers, who regard Uzbekistan as increasingly important due to its development potential. The DFG has supported bilateral research projects for many years, focusing on the ancient world and the natural sciences. In this way, the DFG is acting in line with the EU’s Central Asia Strategy, which was renewed in 2019 and which Germany played a key role in shaping, as well as the Federal Foreign Office’s Green Central Asia Initiative and various BMBF funding lines.