The College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) was recently awarded a grant from the American Councils on International Education, with support from the U.S. Embassy in Astana, to establish a partnership between The Ohio State University and Kazakh National Agrarian University (KazNAU) in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
The CFAES team includes Beau Ingle, Program Manager in International Programs in Agriculture; Aradhya Gourapura, Professor in the Food Animal Health Research Program (FAHRP); and Rafiq Islam, Program Leader of Soil and Bioenergy at Ohio State South Centers.
The project will focus on building programmatic linkages with KazNAU through teaching, research, and outreach, particularly in priority topics of animal infectious diseases and sustainable agricultural production systems.
“Through this project, we expect to not only establish a long-lasting partnership with KazNAU, but lay the groundwork to enable more CFAES researchers to work jointly with Kazakh collaborators in areas of mutual interest,” says Ingle. Ingle also explains that this project is significant because it has the potential to align well with one of CFAES’ grand challenges, One Health, which involves exploring the interconnections between animal, human, and environmental health.
Both Dr. Gourapura and Dr. Islam have worked with Kazakh collaborators in the past, including with Kazakhstan’s Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems (RIBSP).
The CFAES team plans to visit KazNAU this Spring to explore in greater detail collaborative research topics, train-the-trainer programs, exchanging of visiting scholars, and other interactive opportunities to advance Ohio State – KazNAU student and faculty success.
American Councils hopes that this partnership between Ohio State and KazNAU will be a model for how other U.S. - Kazakh higher education partnerships can comprehensively internationalize their institutions, as well as for how to build their capacities in effectively preparing their students to live and work in a global economy.