Preparing and publishing a scientific article almost always involves costs. We look at whether universities in Kyrgyzstan are willing to cover them.
Who pays for publishing a scientific article?
The cost of publication depends on the journal. Some publications on the HAC’s List of peer-reviewed journals publish articles free of charge. Other journals, particularly open-access titles, charge an article processing fee.
On top of this come the costs of translation, editing and formatting the material to meet a particular journal’s requirements. These costs may be borne by the scientist themselves, the department, the university or a grant programme.
There is no single rule in Kyrgyzstan obliging a university to reimburse these costs in full. The decision rests with each institution and its own financial policy.
The current Regulation on the Procedure for Awarding Academic Degrees requires at least five publications for a Candidate of Sciences dissertation, including one article in a journal indexed by Scopus and/or Web of Science. A doctoral dissertation requires at least fifteen publications, including two such articles. The higher these requirements, the more the question of funding comes to the fore.
Financial autonomy gives a university the right to pay for publications
The ability to direct funds towards publication activity stems from a university’s financial autonomy. This right is enshrined in legislation on education and on science. In the summer of 2026, the president signed a new version of the Law “On Education”, which separately established the concept of administrative and financial autonomy for an educational organisation.
In practice, a university earns income from fee-paying students and paid scientific services. Part of this income is credited to a special account and remains at the institution’s disposal.
State universities are required to allocate at least one per cent of the annual funds held in the special account to the development of science. With these funds, a university may cover costs linked to staff publication activity, including:
- paying for reviewing, translation and formatting services for articles
- participation in international academic conferences
- subscriptions to international scientific databases
- upgrading laboratory equipment
The legislation does not provide for a separate budget line specifically for compensating publication costs. The decision – to cover a scientist’s costs in full, in part, or not at all – is therefore made by each university independently.
Is funding for publications set to expand?
In the summer of 2026, the Cabinet of Ministers put forward for public discussion a bill amending the Budget Code and the Law “On Science”. The document proposes raising the minimum share of the special account allocated to science from one to three per cent.
It also considers giving universities and the National Academy of Sciences the right to set their own rates for paid scientific and publishing services. As the bill is still at the discussion stage, it is too early to speak of specific compensation amounts.
Grants as an additional source of funding for publication
Besides university funds, a grant can cover part of the cost of publication. In Kyrgyzstan, such support is available through several channels.
Under the “Quality and Innovation in Higher Education” project, the Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Innovation of the Kyrgyz Republic distributes grants from the Academic Innovation Fund. These are open to universities across all disciplines and can reach up to 200,000 US dollars over a term of up to three years. Separate grant-funding rules apply to institutions of the National Academy of Sciences – the priorities for such competitions are set by the Council for Science, Innovation and New Technologies under the Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers.
Such grants usually cover research activity as a whole rather than a single publication in a Scopus or Web of Science journal. Nevertheless, a university is entitled to direct part of the funds awarded towards preparing an article for publication as well.
How to find out whether a particular university covers the costs
As there is no single rule, the only way to get an exact answer is through an institution’s own internal documents.
To find out, you should:
- Contact the research office or the university’s academic secretary.
- Check with the finance department whether a budget line exists for publication activity.
- Review the internal regulation on the special account and how it may be used.
- Find out whether the university runs a grant programme that covers such costs.
There is currently no single answer to whether a university in Kyrgyzstan covers the cost of publishing an article. It depends on the financial policy of the particular institution and the funds available to it. The expansion of universities’ financial autonomy in the coming years may increase such support, but for now it remains at the discretion of the institution itself.
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