Higher education: exploring new opportunities for international collaboration
Tashkent University of Applied Sciences (TAFU), celebrating its fifth anniversary, is one of five out of 74 private educational institutions in the country where graduates receive diplomas that meet state educational standards.
Apart from students admitted for the 2026/27 academic year, as admissions are still in progress, the university currently has over 20,000 students and more than 500 professors and lecturers.
The labor market is becoming more competitive, and globally, expectations for highly skilled professionals are rising. Today’s realities demand that higher education institutions prepare graduates who can succeed not just in Uzbekistan and nearby regions, but also in top international countries. This clearly indicates a strong public demand for quality higher education.
The university’s most valuable resource is its experienced and highly qualified professors and lecturers. Globally, a higher education institution’s reputation and ranking depend significantly on the professional capabilities of its academic staff. During recruitment, the university prioritizes candidates’ research potential, foreign-language skills, publication records in reputable journals, authored textbooks and teaching aids, and their h-index. Consequently, the institution also emphasizes ongoing professional development for its faculty. In the last three years, it has sent 27 professors and lecturers to leading universities abroad.
The commercialization of research, integrating education with innovation, and enhancing education quality rely on international cooperation. Participants from Germany, the UK, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan have engaged in international scientific and practical conferences hosted by the university.
During the previous academic year, the university’s professors and lecturers published 342 articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science (WoS), along with 31 conference papers and abstracts. Additionally, the university registered five patents through joint research with Tashkent State Technical University.
Over the past three years, the university has hosted 10 international scientific conferences and signed two joint research agreements with universities ranked in the top 500 worldwide. The number of foreign professors and lecturers at the university is also increasing. Additionally, the academic staff is participating in 20 international research projects.
During a competition at the International Cybersecurity Summit, which gathered representatives from over 30 countries, TAFU Information Security student Kamron Mamedov earned an honorable third place.
The university’s educational process conforms to international standards and modern requirements. TAFU is actively enhancing collaborations with top universities worldwide and broadening its international partnership network.
Recently, Kolej Poly-Tech MARA Sdn. Bhd. (KPTMSB), a Malaysian company managing private educational institutions such as Universiti Poly-Tech Malaysia and six colleges, signed a Letter of Intent on Cooperation with TAFU.
Under the document, the parties agreed to foster friendly and collaborative relations, enhance mutual understanding, support academic and cultural exchanges, and promote staff mobility. They also committed to working toward more formal, comprehensive, and legally binding agreements. The guests received a detailed overview of the modern facilities available to students within TAFU’s academic buildings.
Karomiddin Gadoyev, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Uzbekistan to Malaysia, participated in the signing ceremony.
Sultonmurod Olim,
Professor at TAFU
UzA
