About NORCA (Nordics – Central Asia)
NORCA (Nordics – Central Asia) is an interdisciplinary research platform based at Lund University, dedicated to advancing research, dialogue, and policy-relevant knowledge on Central Asia from Nordic and global perspectives.
NORCA brings together scholars, practitioners, and institutions working on law, governance, political economy, migration, corruption, and social transformation in Central Asia and other non-Western societies. The platform serves as a hub for EU-funded research projects, international collaboration, academic dissemination, and engagement with policymakers, civil society organizations, and international stakeholders.
The core mission of NORCA is to:
- generate cutting-edge, empirically grounded research on Central Asia;
- foster interdisciplinary and comparative approaches across regions and disciplines;
- support capacity-building, training, and academic exchange;
- translate research findings into policy-relevant insights for global audiences.
NORCA currently hosts and coordinates several large-scale European Union–funded research projects under the Horizon Europe and MSCA frameworks, focusing on governance, law, migration, corruption, and social change in Central Asia and beyond.
Leadership and Team
Rustamjon Urinboyev – Head of NORCA, Principal Investigator of SOCIAL, POLCA, MARS, MOCCA, CENTRAL ASIAN LAW
Rustamjon Urinboyev is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology of Law at Lund University. His research lies at the intersection of the sociology of law and ethnography, with a focus on migration, corruption, governance, and penal institutions in Russia and Central Asia.
His current research examines:
- migration, the shadow economy, and informal legal orders in hybrid political regimes;
- corruption, informality, and legal pluralism in Uzbekistan;
- informal hierarchies, religious orders, and ethnic identities in Russian penal institutions.
He is the author of Migration and Hybrid Political Regimes: Navigating the Legal Landscape in Russia (University of California Press, 2020) and has published extensively on law, governance, and informality in Eurasia.
Sherzod Eraliev – Senior Researcher
Sherzod Eraliev is a Senior Researcher at the Department of Sociology of Law at Lund University. His research focuses on migration, informality, democratization, civil society, and authoritarianism in Eurasia.
Sherzod has held research positions at the Aleksanteri Institute (University of Helsinki) and the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University, and has worked with international organizations in the development, migration, and humanitarian sectors. He has also been a visiting lecturer at universities in Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.
He is the co-author of The Political Economy of Non-Western Migration Regimes: Central Asian Migrant Workers in Russia and Turkey (Palgrave, 2022) and Global Migration and Illiberalism in Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe (Helsinki University Press, 2024).
Chekhros Kilichova – Project Assistant
Chekhros Kilichova is a Project Assistant working on EU-funded research projects within the NORCA platform. She graduated from the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Uzbekistan and holds an MSc in Economic Growth, Population and Development from Lund University.
Before joining NORCA, she gained professional experience in public communications as well as project and programme management. Her research interests focus on economic governance and trade relations in Central Asia.