The main achievements of the Tempus programme in Central Asia 1994 – 2013

The main aim of the Tempus programme is to support the modernisation of higher education in partner countries in eastern Europe, the western Balkans, the southern Mediterranean and central Asia. Of the 27 countries that the programme works with in these regions, five are in central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Cooperation between the EU and central Asia represents an important objective of the European Union's external relations and international development cooperation policy and aims to increase political, economic and cultural links both between the European Union and these countries and between these countries themselves. The Tempus programme, as a whole, was launched in 1990. Between 1994 and 1997, these five countries started participating in Tempus, in the framework of the TACIS programme, the EU’s initiative to support economic and social transition in the former Soviet Union and central Asia. Since then, Tempus has been going from strength to strength in the region. Given the Tempus programme’s impact, the European Commission's new education programme, Erasmus+ (2014‐2020) incorporates Tempus‐like activities under its key action II, 'Capacity‐building in higher education' strand. This publication starts with a general review of the impact of Tempus in the region as a whole, before focusing the lens, with contributions from the NTOs, on each of the five countries in turn. We hope that you will find this stimulating and inspiring and we look forward to continuing to work with the region through further cooperation under Erasmus+ from 2014 to 2020