In May, Uzbekistan’s State Statistics Committee reported that the number of tertiary education graduates has more than tripled over the past decade, rising from 144,900 in 2015 to 472,200 in 2025. This growth is certainly commendable and reflects the Mirziyoyev administration’s early commitment to expanding higher education as part of the country’s broader development strategy. Caution over Uzbekistan’s higher education reform highlights a core issue: market competition alone does not ensure quality. Higher education is not only about constructing buildings, developing curricula and marketing them with glossy brochures, but also about intellectual autonomy, academic freedom, the transformation of individuals, and the cultivation of research culture. Otherwise, higher education becomes merely a shop for distributing degrees.
Today, Uzbekistan is home to more than 200 universities – state, private, and international. But even with the private university boom and this quantitative expansion, academic freedom remains limited in certain sensitive or underrated fields like political science and related disciplines.
Despite a Return of Political Science, an Ongoing Shortage of Opportunities
Political science majors were effectively dismantled in 2015, but it was not an overnight decision. Uzbekistan’s higher education system ceased admitting students to political science programs in 2010, and by 2013, all political science departments had been shut down under the justification that they did not consider the “Uzbek model” of development. The decision reflected the Soviet tradition of fighting with pseudosciences and eliminating elements not corresponding with the state’s ideological leaning. This continuity of Soviet-style education can also be interpreted through the lens of what institutionalists term as path dependency – a lock-in effect whereby institutional development remains trapped and reflects the decisions and habits of the past.
Although the political science discipline was formally reinstated in 2019 by a presidential decree under the new administration, its revival has been extremely limited in scope. According to the State Open Data Portal, currently only eight state universities offer political science degrees. For the 2024-25 academic year, Uzbekistan’s 112 public universities offered 196,388 spots in bachelor’s programs, but only 325 were allocated to political science majors, representing a mere 0.16 percent of the total. The figure appears even more marginal when viewed in the broader context: according to the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Innovation, the country has 211 higher education institutions serving over 1.1 million students across various disciplines.
Political science is not alone. Based on the available data published on State Open Data Portal, only six state universities offer undergraduate degrees in international relations – all clustered in Tashkent. Sociology is available at 12 universities across the country, social work at 10, philosophy at seven, anthropology at only three, while public administration is available at just two state universities. Although in May the government announced that the Presidential Academy of Public Administration will be reorganized into a new Academy of Public Policy and Governance, at present, the country lacks a fully-fledged school of public policy.
Another related problem is a significant shortage of Uzbek-language materials, including in the field of political science or sociology – works by renowned world scholars or classic books are rarely available in translation. Most university courses employ domestically authored textbooks in Uzbek or Russian, which become the main window onto the discipline. In turn, this may create a citation loop. Home-grown manuals shape how the next generation understands political science in isolation of the field’s global reach. Although the state has launched a project aimed at translating world classic books, multiple observers highlight the gap, lamenting that many books were never translated into Uzbek.
In recent years, Uzbekistan has seen a clear positive trend toward the creation of new research and analytical centers – think tanks. To name a few, the Development Strategy Center was opened in 2017, Yuksalish was established in 2019, the International Institute for Central Asia was founded in 2021, the Institute of Advanced International Studies in 2022, and the Center for Progressive Reforms in 2023. Most of these institutions are state-affiliated, state-run and/or staffed by former state officials. Where formal political science departments are small, policy advice migrates to a constellation of semi-official think tanks. Crucially, even such quasi-government think-tanks still depend on academia to supply the next generation of knowledge producers and high-quality outputs in the form of policy or research papers.
The 2024 Bertelsmann Transformation Index noted that “Uzbekistan has only a limited number of relatively capable independent think tanks and academic institutions that engage in critical analysis of existing policies and government decision-making processes.” A 2023 article in Modern Diplomacy pinpointed the core challenges faced by today’s Uzbek think tanks: dependence on state contracts, limited funding diversification, limited data access, lack of investment in human capacity, and shortage of experts, all of which are constrained within safe ideological boundaries.
The supply of social science programs remains concentrated within state-run institutions, leaving a noticeable gap in educational opportunities at non-state and branches of international universities. The shortage of local social science programs makes Uzbekistan a niche well worth exploring for well-regarded foreign universities eyeing regional expansion. Most private and international universities are heavily skewed toward business, finance, information technology, management, marketing, and tourism. In many cases, some institutions do not even maintain functioning websites or do not post detailed content, making it difficult to assess the quality and scope of their programs.
Uzbekistan needs not only entrepreneurs, business managers, or IT specialists, but also policy architects, public administrators, international relations specialists, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and similar civic experts. This gap highlights the growing need for scholars in these fields – especially as the world hurtles into an AI-driven era – with leading universities already offering AI programs and courses in social sciences.
While there are certainly Uzbek scholars and practitioners in the field of political science and related fields, the future of the discipline relies on nurturing a new cohort of experts. Today, that role is often filled by local bloggers and podcasters. Back in 2017, Alisher Faizullaev – professor emeritus at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent and a former ambassador of Uzbekistan to the United Kingdom, Benelux countries, EU, and NATO – highlighted the need for political analysis and the study of political science. Notably, in his view, political science should be treated as a science, free from ideological or opportunistic influences, as its development as an independent discipline would benefit both the state and society. Yet this vision hinges on political will, which in practice still tends to reflect lingering institutional traditions from the Soviet period.
Limited Academic Space and Research Capacity
One of the key ingredients necessary for a flourishing social science scene and the production of high-quality outputs is true academic freedom and investment in human capital, allowing diverse scholarly perspectives to gain prominence and, just as importantly, creating space for systematic, well-resourced research. According to the Academic Freedom Index run by FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and V-Dem Institute, Uzbekistan sits in the 20-30 percent bracket of the 2024 index (status D) yet with signs of statistically significant improvements since 2013. For contrast, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are in the 30-40 percent (Status D and C status) with a slightly more pluralistic environment in academia. Freedom House’s most recent annual Freedom in the World report still ranked Uzbekistan as “not free” and this has implications for academia.
Sensitive issues, from the perspective of the government, could be red lined for researchers, while locals must report foreign grants and get approval. Contacts between universities or scholars and foreign entities are also subject to state oversight, although Uzbek universities have had more space to seek partnerships with foreign institutions since 2016. A notable limitation of Uzbekistan’s higher education system is its inability to cultivate critical thinking and to transform individuals, enabling learners to view the world and social processes from multiple angles. It’s still difficult for students and academics in Uzbekistan to critically engage with scholarly debates and the theories of leading scholars and thinkers.
This brings us back to the central question: how ready is the system to open the doors to genuine academic debates?
The issue runs deeper than just the ban or restriction of political science. “Whether you get an academic degree or not depends on the existence of research councils at universities and there is a limited number of research councils in this field in Uzbek universities,” explains a U.K.-based scholar who asked to remain anonymous, referring to his field research.
This does not mean there is a complete lack of academic freedom in Uzbekistan. In fact, fields such as sociology, philosophy, and related fields have witnessed a relaxation of previous censorship.
“I still think there is a positive change in academic freedom,” the scholar further noted. What largely persists, he elaborated, is a deep-seated fear among administrative bodies about damaging the country’s public image. Rooted in a Soviet-era mindset, openly discussing the country’s problems – whether obvious or nuanced – is often seen as a betrayal, as though it tarnishes the nation’s reputation. What they fail to understand is that identifying and criticizing systematic shortcomings in one or another sphere is a necessary step toward meaningful reform and building a stronger nation.
A related issue regards interpreting academic freedom. There is “a difference between academic freedom and academic autonomy (in Uzbek state documents, it is rendered as ‘autonomy’),” he continued. “That is, in our context, academic freedom is often interpreted as academic autonomy, but in the documents it mostly refers to the universities’ freedom in academic management. In my understanding, there is no clear distinction in this regard, and everyone may interpret it differently.
“In a certain sense, the opportunities for freedom of speech that have been granted since 2017 have also, to some extent, provided more freedom in academic research (which is a positive aspect). However, in terms of disseminating information that may not align with the state’s/government’s image, censorship still exists.”
Despite market-oriented reforms, governance of the higher education sector is top-down, hierarchical, and centralized. Rectors often come from a state-sector background reflecting a path-dependent carry-over of the Soviet legacy of “nomenklatura” posts. Back in 2024, the higher education minister claimed that “the question of electing rectors is included in the 2030 strategy and is under review.” However, appointments of executive heads and rectors, which is a component of institutional autonomy, remains centralized under the Cabinet of Ministers, with rapid reshuffles. In February 2020 the Cabinet dismissed or moved 10 rectors in a single day.
Throughout the broader scholarly ecosystem and issues with academic freedom, the structural weakness of social sciences extends beyond pedagogy, exacerbated by a shortage of reputable journals and sensitivity of research topics. The phenomenon known as “publish or perish“ is evident within Uzbekistan’s higher education system too. It pushes people to chase compliance rather than quality, driven by local bureaucratic quotas, lack of funding, and the global shift toward open-access publishing. This stick-led pressure and quota-driven demands led to a ballooning market of ghostwriting and predatory publications. Even one quick search on Telegram is enough to surface a plethora of Uzbek channels offering to place manuscripts in little-known, barely indexed journals. Simultaneously, the 2017 policy reforms – linking cash bonuses to publication counts – boosted unethical behavior, unintendedly encouraging widespread shortcuts in doctoral dissertations and triggering a surge of low-quality publications. Yet even if universities or scholars notch any success, the credit lies with determined individuals, not with the system.
Further progress will depend on departure from “old habits” and ensuring genuine freedom of academic inquiry, which includes unfettered access to data, a plurality of viewpoints, institutional autonomy, more funding and more space for bottom-up independent research. This would allow both universities and think tanks to nurture a new pool of knowledge producers capable of offering policy advice, and can potentially make the social sciences flourish. Meanwhile, the limited social science landscape signals an untapped market for international universities to invest in Uzbek academia and human capital more and to introduce globally benchmarked programs.