Professor Pulat Shozimov

Pulat Shozimov previously served as the Acting Director of the Aga Khan Humanities Project and at the same time as the head of the Faculty Development Program (AKHP). As Acting Director, Shozimov supervised the AKHP activities on the development of curricula, humanities classes in English, the Faculty Development Program (FDP), the AKHP Resource Center, the Public Lectures Series, and Debate activities. As a manager of the faculty development program, Shozimov supervised a rigorous training program on interactive curricula and pedagogy in a network of higher education institutions in Tajikistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Kazakhstan.

A leading Central Asian scholar, Professor Shozimov previously worked as a head of the AKHP Curriculum Development department. He headed the Department of Western Philosophy of the Institute of Philosophy, Political Sciences and Law at Tajikistan’s Academy of Sciences, and was engaged in research on culture and problems of formation of national identity in Central Asia. Shozimov graduated with honors from the Pushkin Institute of Russian Language and Literature in Dushanbe; received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Almaty (1993) and a Doctor of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, Political Sciences, and Law at Tajikistan’s Academy of Sciences in Dushanbe (2006). In 2013, Shozimov received a professor’s degree in the specialty: "Social Philosophy".

From 2021 to the present, P. Shozimov has been Chairman of the Expert Council on Philosophy, Political Science and Sociology of the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC) under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan.

He is the author of the book "Tajik Identity and State Building in Tajikistan", the editor and author of several chapters of the book "Fergana Valley: the Heart of Central Asia" (M.E. Sharp, 2011), and has published more than 70 articles. Shozimov Pulat is the author of the innovative cross-debate format (CDF), according to which five international/regional tournaments have already been successfully held with the participation of students from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Syria, and many national tournaments in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.