Lund, Sweden – 4 May 2026
A MOCCA seminar brought together researchers and participants from Lund University and other partner institutions to examine higher education reform, transparency in business regulation, academic integrity, and the governance of personal data in Uzbekistan.
The session combined a guest lecture by Dr. Iskandar Yuldashev, Rector of Tashkent International University, with research presentations by Shahlokhon Ashiralieva, Gulkhumor Kakhkhorova, and Nilufar Abdulhamidova from Fergana State Technical University (Uzbekistan). Together, the presentations addressed questions central to contemporary governance and institutional reform in Central Asia: how economic liberalisation and education policy are reshaping universities, how transparency reforms affect business owners in practice, how academic corruption can be reproduced through everyday communication, and how insider misuse of personal data creates new challenges for information security and public accountability.
Opening Remarks
The seminar opened with remarks by Professor Rustamjon Urinboyev, who situated the event within the wider research environment of NORCA (Nordics – Central Asia) at Lund University. He highlighted NORCA as an interdisciplinary platform for advancing research, dialogue, and policy-relevant knowledge on Central Asia from Nordic and global perspectives.
Professor Urinboyev outlined how ongoing projects under the NORCA umbrella, including MOCCA, MARS, and POLCA, contribute to a shared agenda on governance, law, migration, corruption, political economy, and social transformation in Central Asia and other non-Western societies. His remarks framed the seminar as part of a broader effort to connect empirical research, international collaboration, staff exchange, and policy-oriented academic engagement.
The opening also emphasised the importance of sustained cooperation between Lund University and partner institutions in Central Asia. By bringing together scholars working across education reform, business transparency, academic integrity, and digital governance, the seminar reflected NORCA’s role as a hub for interdisciplinary research and collaboration across EU-funded projects and international partner networks.
Guest Lecture: Education as a Driver of Reform
Dr. Iskandar Yuldashev presented Tashkent International University’s role in Uzbekistan’s ongoing economic and higher education reforms. Drawing on his international experience in South Korea and Central Asia, he discussed Uzbekistan’s post-2017 reform agenda, including trade and currency liberalisation, anti-corruption and rule-of-law reforms, privatisation, macro-fiscal consolidation, investment in social and human capital, and digitalisation.
The lecture highlighted Uzbekistan’s young demographic profile and the growing policy emphasis on youth employment, entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, and international higher education. Dr. Yuldashev noted that university enrolment has expanded significantly since 2017, while the number of higher education institutions has increased alongside foreign branch campuses and international programmes.
The Q&A session addressed how universities can support research activity within teaching contracts, how private and public universities in Uzbekistan differ in institutional flexibility, and how research incentives, ethical review, open-access costs, and international ranking ambitions shape the development of emerging universities.
Research Presentations
Shahlokhon Ashiralieva from Fergana State Technical University presented research on transparency in business establishment procedures and access to infrastructure in Uzbekistan. The study examines the gap between formal legal frameworks and the practical realities faced by business owners when registering companies, obtaining licences, acquiring industrial land, and accessing electricity and water.
Ashiralieva discussed methodological challenges, including limited survey participation from business owners, and described a shift toward a qualitative approach using legal documents, literature, secondary data, and publicly available business dispute cases. The presentation highlighted land auction reforms as one example of the difference between officially stated simplification and the more complex procedural steps experienced in practice. The research points to the importance of end-to-end digitalisation, stronger enforcement capacity for business ombudsman institutions, and regular transparency audits.
Gulkhumor Kakhkhorova from Fergana State Technical University presented research on “soft corruption language” in academia. The presentation examined how indirect requests, emotional appeals, politeness strategies, self-justification, social pressure, and future-oriented appeals can influence academic assessment and contribute to the normalisation of unfair practices. The research emphasised that corruption in academic settings may begin not only with monetary exchange, but also through everyday forms of communication that weaken ethical boundaries and academic standards.
Kakhkhorova’s presentation connected linguistic analysis with broader questions of academic integrity, ethical communication, and professional conduct in university settings. The study aims to raise awareness among students about appropriate academic communication and to contribute to more transparent and fair assessment environments.
Nilufar Abdulhamidova from Fergana State Technical University presented her research on the corrupt use of customers’ personal data by insiders. The presentation focused on information security risks arising when individuals with authorised access misuse data for personal or financial benefit. Abdulhamidova distinguished between external cyberattacks and insider threats, noting that insiders can be particularly difficult to detect because they already have legitimate access to institutional systems.
The presentation discussed malicious, negligent, and accidental insider threats, as well as risks such as phishing, financial fraud, social engineering, data resale, and targeted cyberattacks.
Discussion Highlights
The Q&A sessions provided feedback on research design, conceptual clarity, and policy relevance. Participants encouraged clearer definitions of transparency and obstacles in the study of business procedures, suggested using comparative sources such as World Bank business climate data, and recommended in-depth interviews with business leaders as a possible complement to document-based analysis.
The discussion of academic corruption language raised questions about terminology, typology, and the expected research contribution. Participants encouraged further clarification of how linguistic patterns in academic settings can be identified, classified, and analysed as part of broader anti-corruption research.
The discussion of insider data misuse focused on the need to define the scope of “insiders” and to consider whether the research should also examine public data sets, surveillance technologies, and the commercial misuse of data beyond private business contexts. Participants also raised the question of whether selling personal data to third parties should be classified primarily as a crime, corruption, or both.
Project Context
MOCCA, “Multilevel Orders of Corruption in Central Asia,” is a four-year research and training project funded by the European Commission’s HORIZON-MSCA-2021-SE-01-01 – MSCA Staff Exchanges 2021 programme (project number 101085855). Running from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2026, the project examines multilevel orders of corruption in Central Asia.
The seminar contributed to MOCCA’s broader focus on governance, corruption, institutional capacity, and evidence-based reform. By bringing together perspectives from higher education leadership, legal and regulatory studies, linguistic analysis, and information security, the event created space for interdisciplinary exchange on how institutions respond to reform pressures and integrity challenges.