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The phenomenon of Kazakhstani students not returning home after completing their education abroad has emerged as one of the country's pressing strategic challenges. To address this issue through rigorous scientific inquiry, a research team is implementing a major project titled "International Educational Migration of Kazakhstan's Youth: Risks and Solutions." The project is funded under the "Zhas Galym" ("Young Scientist") grant programme and spans the years 2025 to 2027, with total funding exceeding 29.8 billion tenge.

The project falls under the priority research direction "Intellectual Potential of the Country" and addresses the development of the state's human resource capacity. It constitutes a fundamental sociological study with significant applied implications for national policy.

In an era of accelerating globalisation, educational migration has become a widespread and largely normalised phenomenon. The proliferation of grant programmes and the increasing accessibility of foreign universities have opened wide doors for young Kazakhstanis seeking world-class education. Yet these opportunities carry a serious structural risk: when educated young professionals choose not to return home, their country loses precisely the human capital it most needs. This phenomenon — widely known as "brain drain" — is not merely a statistical curiosity but a socioeconomic reality with lasting consequences for national development.

International evidence consistently shows that a significant share of students educated abroad ultimately settle in their host countries rather than returning home. Kazakhstan is no exception to this trend. What drives these decisions? Can public policy meaningfully shift them? These are the central questions this project sets out to answer.

Most existing scholarship on educational migration focuses predominantly on macroeconomic drivers — wage differentials, employment prospects, and quality of life differences between sending and receiving countries. While these factors matter, the research team argues that this approach offers an incomplete and overly deterministic picture of why young people stay or return.

The proposed study examines migration decisions at three interlocking levels: macro-level structural conditions, meso-level institutional and network factors, and micro-level individual circumstances, values, and aspirations. Crucially, the project treats young people not as passive objects shaped by external forces, but as active agents who weigh their own possibilities and constraints in making consequential life decisions.

The researchers identify eight significant gaps in the existing literature that this project is designed to address. These include the underrepresentation of postgraduate students (master's and doctoral candidates) in prior research; the neglect of non-economic migration motives such as cultural belonging, social ties, and personal identity; insufficient attention to the dynamic process through which migration intentions form and evolve over time; and the absence of comparative analysis across different funding categories — state scholarship holders, foreign grant recipients, and self-funded students.

Importantly, the project is the first of its kind in Kazakhstan to cover the full lifecycle of educational migration: from the initial formation of intentions to study abroad, through the experience of studying, to the actual post-graduation decisions about where to live and work.

The study is structured in three interconnected phases, combining quantitative and qualitative research methods.

In the first phase, a large-scale survey is conducted among upper secondary school students who are planning to pursue education abroad. The sample includes a minimum of 500 respondents, selected through stratified sampling that accounts for gender, place of residence, family socioeconomic status, and type of school. The margin of error does not exceed five percent.

In the second phase, in-depth interviews are conducted with Kazakhstani students currently enrolled in bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programmes at foreign universities. The purposive sample comprises 30 participants. Selection criteria prioritise diversity in funding source: the sample includes holders of the state-funded "Bolashak" scholarship programme, which carries a legally binding obligation to return to Kazakhstan; recipients of foreign grants; and self-funded students. Additional criteria include programme duration, length of time spent abroad, and family status.

In the third phase, in-depth interviews are conducted with graduates of foreign universities — both those who have returned to Kazakhstan and those who have remained abroad or relocated to a third country. This phase directly captures the realisation of migration decisions and enables researchers to trace how earlier intentions translated into actual outcomes.

Quantitative data are analysed using certified SPSS software, with statistical tests applied to identify causal and correlational patterns. Qualitative data from interviews are subjected to interpretive analysis aimed at uncovering the substantive logic behind migration choices.

To ensure the validity and ethical integrity of the data, all participants provide formal informed consent. Confidentiality and anonymity are guaranteed. Interviews are conducted in the participant's preferred language. The university, as a legal entity, maintains the highest standards of academic integrity, including protections against data fabrication, plagiarisation, and unauthorised use of collective research outputs.

The project will produce several significant scientific and practical outputs.

The centrepiece is the development of an original measurement scale for the migration motives of Kazakhstani youth engaged in international educational migration. This instrument will be designed for ongoing use in monitoring the migration orientations of different youth categories, offering policymakers a diagnostic tool grounded in empirical research.

Building on the findings, the project will design a comprehensive incentive strategy aimed at minimising the risks of permanent emigration. This strategy will be informed by a systematic analysis of international best practices, adapted to the specific context of Kazakhstan.

A practical guidebook on monitoring and regulating international educational migration among Kazakhstani youth will consolidate the project's policy-relevant findings into actionable recommendations for government bodies, higher education institutions, and youth policy organisations.

All research results will be published in international peer-reviewed journals indexed in Scopus and Web of Science databases. A scientific monograph is also planned.

The return of young professionals educated at leading world universities is a cornerstone of Kazakhstan's capacity to build an innovative, knowledge-driven economy. Yet the conditions for that return — and the reasons it often does not happen — remain poorly understood. This project addresses that gap directly.

By mapping the full algorithm of migration intention formation — from the initial aspiration to study abroad through to post-graduation settlement decisions — the research creates the evidence base needed for genuinely effective policy. Rather than reactive measures taken after emigration has occurred, the project's outcomes will enable proactive, targeted interventions: policies and incentives designed with an understanding of what actually drives young people's choices.

At the international level, the findings will contribute to the global scholarly conversation on educational migration from developing countries, demonstrating that migration decisions cannot be reduced to economic differentials alone and that the lived experiences and agency of young people deserve a central place in migration research.

The project's results will be presented at international scientific conferences and shared with the broader research community, contributing to both Kazakhstani and global knowledge on one of the defining challenges of the globalisation era.