The National Bank of Kazakhstan is accepting applications for economic research grants through October 22, 2026 inclusive. The competition is open exclusively to incorporated legal entities operating in higher education, scientific research, applied economics, or data processing. The designated focus of the current selection cycle is wealth distribution in Kazakhstan.

The central bank has not set a fixed grant cap: applicants must calculate and justify their own research budget. The National Bank reserves the right to fund multiple proposals within the same topic or decline to award any grants if submitted proposals fail to meet rigorous peer-review scoring benchmarks.

Application Period	September 8 – October 22, 2026 inclusive
Eligible Applicants	Incorporated legal entities; applications from individual researchers are not accepted
Research Topic	Wealth Distribution in Kazakhstan: Dynamics, Drivers, and State Policy Interventions
Project Timeline	Up to 8 months; interim progress report due within 4 months
Submission Channel	Online via the official NBK digital portal authenticated with dual electronic digital signatures (EDS)

Core Research Mandate: What the Winning Team Must Investigate

The National Bank does not seek a superficial theoretical overview of inequality, but an applied empirical investigation into how accumulated wealth and capital assets are distributed across Kazakhstan, and why certain household strata successfully convert income into savings and tangible wealth while others remain vulnerable. The official Terms of Reference offer five research verticals; the proposed project must address at least three:

• Evaluation of social stratification and polarization, distinguishing natural and actual economic inequality, alongside testing the applicability of the Simon Kuznets inverted-U hypothesis to Kazakhstan’s economic transition;
• Empirical analysis of the level, structure, dynamics, and concentration of wealth and asset inequality, accompanied by cross-country benchmarking;
• Development of an econometric model isolating the fundamental drivers influencing wealth distribution and asset accumulation;
• Evaluation of the role of household income levels, savings capacity, asset acquisition mechanisms, and behavioral household savings patterns;
• Assessment of existing public policy measures and the viability of novel policy levers—ranging from progressive taxation and mortgage finance mechanisms to financial inclusion, tertiary education access, and social safety nets.

Excerpts from the Official National Bank Announcement for the 2026 Competition

Institutional Applicant Eligibility

Participation is restricted strictly to legally incorporated entities whose statutory objectives and core operations encompass at least one of the following domains: higher or postgraduate education, scientific or applied research, or the collection, storage, and processing of statistical data, including sociological polling and administrative data integration. The applicant entity must not be undergoing liquidation, restructuring, or bankruptcy proceedings.

The competition guidelines accommodate universities, accredited research institutes, economic think tanks, and professional data analytics firms. An individual academic or independent analyst cannot apply in a personal capacity—they must affiliate with and submit through a qualified applicant institution.

Research Team and Principal Investigator Requirements

The applicant organization must designate a Project Lead (Principal Investigator) from among its primary key researchers. The Project Lead must hold an established record of scientific publications in peer-reviewed academic journals in the field of study, alongside a recognized advanced doctoral degree (PhD / Doctor of Science) and/or demonstrated relevant research leadership experience. Current employees of the National Bank of Kazakhstan and its affiliated subsidiary organizations are legally prohibited from serving as key project researchers.

If an institution submits multiple grant applications across different research angles, each proposal must feature an entirely independent team of key researchers. A single applicant organization can be awarded no more than one research grant per specific topic.

Budget Formulation, Spending Caps, and Allowable Costs

The requested funding amount is proposed by the applicant. The budget narrative must justify every line item and establish its direct causal link to research outputs. Allowable cost categories comprise compensation for the Project Lead, key and supporting researchers, statutory payroll taxes and mandatory employer social contributions, domestic research travel across Kazakhstan, technical equipment and computing supplies, and outsourced professional services—such as commissioned sociological field surveys.

Institutional overhead (indirect administrative expenses) is capped at a maximum of 15% of total payroll costs and cannot exceed 800 Monthly Calculation Indices (MCI / МРП). For domestic research travel within Kazakhstan, regulatory ceilings apply: daily per-diem allowance is fixed at 5 MCI; lodging reimbursement is capped at up to 15 MCI per night in Astana, Almaty, Atyrau, Aktau, and Shymkent, and up to 12 MCI per night in other regional cities. Transportation expenses are reimbursed strictly at economy-class airfare or railway ticket rates.

Grant funding is disbursed in three milestone tranches: 30% upon formal bilateral contract execution; 40% upon satisfactory review and acceptance of the interim research report; and the final 30% following formal approval of the comprehensive final report. The grant evaluation committee reserves the right to request budget revisions; refusal to adjust the budget or missing the five-day response window results in automatic application rejection.

Core Stages of Application, Evaluation, and Funding under the NBK Research Grant

Mandatory Documentation Package

The primary submission package consists of the official National Bank application form, an itemized expense budget with granular cost justifications, and an independent research justification paper up to 5,000 words in length. The justification paper must detail the research problem, empirical methodology, literature review, data sources and verified access pathways, expected analytical findings, practical policy implications, external consultant engagements, and a structured work plan formatted as a Gantt chart. This justification paper must be completely self-contained and free of external URL hyperlinks.

The application must be accompanied by certified copies of the organization’s charter, legal certificates establishing operational authority, higher education and doctoral degree diplomas of the Project Lead, and verified publication lists for the Project Lead and key research personnel.

• For educational institutions: state operating license and all official appendices;
• For scientific organizations: official certificate of state accreditation for scientific and/or scientific-technical activity;
• For academic publications: full article copies, direct links to indexed scientific databases (Scopus / Web of Science), or registered DOI identifiers in designated form fields.

Digital Portal Submission Workflow

Applications are submitted exclusively online via the National Bank’s digital portal. Initial registration requires authentication via the personal Electronic Digital Signature (EDS / ЭЦП) of the Project Lead, who must be a staff employee of the applicant organization. The finalized submission package must be authenticated with dual electronic digital signatures: the EDS of the Project Lead and the EDS of the organization’s Chief Executive (or authorized legal representative acting under power of attorney).

Upon receipt, the National Bank issues a notification within five business days regarding acceptance, rejection, or return for corrections. Applicants are permitted exactly one revision cycle within five business days, strictly addressing the deficiencies identified in the notification. Consequently, lodging submissions on the final deadline date carries significant procedural risks.

Evaluation Criteria and Peer Review Selection

Every accepted proposal is evaluated independently by two external peer reviewers and the relevant specialized department of the National Bank. Reviewers score proposals based on methodological soundness, team scientific pedigree, work plan feasibility, practical policy relevance, and budget justification. Final funding awards are determined by the National Bank Grant Allocation Committee.

Selection results will be published on the official National Bank website within five business days of the committee’s decision. There is no predetermined quota of winners: the committee may award multiple grants, a single grant, or none at all.

Disclosure of Artificial Intelligence Usage Is Mandatory: The utilization of generative AI tooling is permissible strictly under principles of academic scientific integrity. However, authors are legally and ethically required to disclose the use of generative models in drafting narrative text, conceiving hypotheses, synthesizing datasets, generating code, designing graphics, and executing analytical literature reviews whenever such tools impacted argumentative conclusions. All empirical research outcomes must be independently reproducible. Standard orthographic spellcheckers, document formatting, and bibliographic citation management software do not require disclosure.

Post-Award Obligations and Legal Penalties

The research project must be completed within a maximum of eight months, excluding the time required by the National Bank to review submissions. An interim progress report is due no later than four months following contract execution. Both interim and final reports must be delivered in Kazakh and Russian in Word and PDF formats, with econometric datasets, calculation scripts, and time series submitted in Excel and reproducible code formats.

Grantees must maintain separate accounting ledgers for project expenditures, retain complete fiscal proof of expenses, and publish research findings in a recognized peer-reviewed scientific journal. Any unspent grant capital must be returned to the central bank. In cases of budget misappropriation, scientific ethics violations, or failure to fulfill milestone commitments, the grant may be annulled in whole or in part, triggering mandatory legal clawback of disbursed funds.

A severe regulatory consequence applies to participating key researchers: if research findings are not published or if the interim or final report fails committee approval, the involved researchers face a mandatory five-year ban from participating in future National Bank grant competitions.

Pre-Submission Checklist for Research Institutions

Institutions should first verify that corporate charter documents and operational scopes confirm legal eligibility to participate. Next, formally designate the Project Lead, select at least three research verticals from the technical specifications, identify microdata sources, and secure access permissions. Only then should teams formulate labor estimates, travel expenses, and survey budgets.

Submitting the digital dossier well before the final deadline preserves the crucial opportunity for a one-time five-day correction cycle. For technical portal inquiries, the National Bank maintains telephone support at 1477; substantive questions regarding grant terms can be directed to the designated central bank officers listed in the official announcement documentation.

Official Competition Portal: Official NBK Announcement and Application Forms

Application Submission: National Bank Digital Portal

Competition Guidelines: Download Official DOCX Regulations

Technical Specifications: Download Official Research Mandate Appendix

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