Webometric study of university–business–government collaboration potential at a regional scale: A case-study of the mining industry in the Almaty region in the Republic of Kazakhstan

Abstract

This article studies activity and collaboration of universities, business and government in the Almaty Region of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The research is carried out by the webometric method. Large universities show more collaboration in the field of education, and small universities are focused on the local market are more active. In addition to the direct benefits due to increased flow of innovative content from universities in favor of industrial functioning, business can gain greatly from the creation of a special academic cultural environment at housing communities of miners. There is also a potential for the gradual transformation of the most prepared single-industry towns situated at mineral deposits into science cities with the help of regional universities. Actually, this means a certain confluence of a mining company and a university. The smart use of technologies coupled with more robust assessment can make a big difference in this environment. Even without major structural shifts, small modifications can lead to efficiency gains that bring large economic improvements. Eliminating bottlenecks inherent in individual mining companies within a territorial cluster with backing provided by a regional university can produce high marginal profits with relatively small additional investments. Integrating universities to mining activities and accompanying processes can significantly change the image and role of the mining industry. The expected economic effect from the closer collaboration between universities and mining companies can be illustrated by the performance of JSC Kazatomprom. Investments in the uranium science in the amount of 1% of revenue has provided the increase in the Company’s in income by 3000% in 10 years. By assuming a rather conservative estimate of investment in university collaboration as 0.1% of the region’s income, judged from the effectiveness of science and based on the above example, we get a growth of the gross regional product at least by 3% per year, even taking into account the fact that only every 10th project is successful.