On May 24, 2011 at 15:00 in the office of the British Council in Almaty a seminar for representatives of Kazakhstani universities - the winners of a trip to UK to establish contacts with UK universities was held.

During one week from January to March 2011 vice-chancellors, international departments’ staff and scientific researchers of laboratories at universities - the winners of "Exploratory grants" - visited the UK universities and met with their counterparts. The themes of the meetings were focused on renewable energy, environmental protection, tourism, biotechnology, etc. Overall, the representatives from 9 Kazakh and one UK universities had the opportunity to take a trip to the UK and Kazakhstan with the aim of establishing partnerships in higher education between the two countries.

On May 24, 2011 the winners of the competition took part in the seminar and shared the results of their visits with each other, as well as their plans to further strengthen ties with British counterparts. During the seminar a teleconference with the representatives from the UK universities was held as well as the pre-launch of a new long-term British Council project in the sphere of higher education: Internationalizing Higher Education– IHE.

The new IHE project will use research findings of the five-year project INSPIRE (International Strategic Partnerships in Research and Education). The most significant outcomes of the INSPIRE project are: a sociological survey to identify the preparedness of universities to establish international cooperation, organisation of high level visits for leaders and politicians in the educational sector, support for long-term strategic partnerships between institutions in Kazakhstan and the UK, providing the Kazakhstani context on international educational conferences and symposia, support and skills development for young scientists, etc.

During the event, Director of British Council, Ms.Lena Milosevic familiarised participants with the strategic mainstreams of the organisation in higher education. She pointed: "I wish you success in your difficult task - to teach the younger generation. I assure you that the British Council will make every effort to support the guidelines of the Government of Kazakhstan aimed at strengthening higher education sector and to increase its competitiveness in order to join the 50 most developed countries in the world."

Also during the seminar, Project manager for Higher Education of British Council, Ms.Dilyara Woodward presented the information about a new project aimed at the internationalizing higher education to the participants. Participants of the seminar, representatives of the metropolitan and regional universities, shared the main results of their visits and the future perspectives to strengthen cooperation with British universities, including the involvement of co-supervisors for the PhD programme, signing of memorandum and agreements, proposal developments for Ministry of Education of RK and others.