Hi Kun

This sounds like spam to me. I would avoid replying.

Hi, Steven

     Thanks for your reply.

Kun

Hi

This is certainly not a spam. What happens is that authorities in Kazakhstan open a call for research funding proposals within their country and they want these proposals to be evaluated by those in international expert community. Based on these evaluation reports, they make decision on funding. I took part in evaluating them a few years ago and the scheme is (not perfect but) transparent enough. You are sent applications and you return your evaluation report to them. At that time, you were not allowed to evaluate more that 5 applications, if I remember correctly. Hope this information helps.

TD

Hi, Timur Dadabaev,

      Thanks for your reply.

Kun

Hi Kun,

I have received the same email ! It seems authentic, but weird. Please keep us updated if you have any new information.

For me it seems a spam.

If you simply go through their webpage, you can check their contact information. The Almaty centre phone number is Tel: 8 (727) 378 0509.

http://www.ncste.kz/ru/content/kontakty

You can see different country and city phone code with respect to the phone number of Arman Mamyrbekov in Almaty (Tel.: +7 (717) 341 01 32).

Received the same email... sounds like spam to me... (too good to be true?).

Hi, other countries (i.e. Mexico) do the same thing, paying ~$150 US per review. Although I'm not familiar with Kazakhstan, I'm tempted as I'm evaluator for Mexico (through a clear process) and I have also received the same email from Kazakhstan. Please let us know your experience with Kazakhstan in case you apply. 

I have just received the same mail...Doubting it is a spam and that2s why I am here. Is there a certain information about the authenticity of the proposal?! 

Hi, All

      Thanks for all your answers. After carefully consideration, I have replied them that I am not available for that due to my time schedule. After that, I never receive any confirmation or news from them.

Did any body ever conducted this review?

Hi, to briefly answer Dan’s question and to provide an update to Kun’s earlier question, I recently took part in this and it worked very efficiently in my case. Projects have been sent in files and instructions were given very clearly as to what criteria to use for evaluation. The payment has been made as agreed. So in case of Kazakhstan, this was not a spam, as some suspected here.

Hi, Timur Dadanaev

Thanks for your information and I think it is clear now for this question.

Regards

Kun

Here is an infogram showing countries and number of experts involved for reviewing applications from the last round of cals . It is in Russian, but you can have an idea from numbers and flags. It is taken from official site of NCSTE.

Hi everybody! I have conducted an expertise as well but still have not received the fees - and they no longer respond to emails.

Hi... I got back to them after they sent me a proposal in order to get more info about it, but never got back to me. So very unprofessional. Plus, they asked me to do the review in a matter of hours (really odd process).

Hi Marina, Antonis and Augustin,

This foundation just got in touch with me to collect hard copies of evaluation reports and I informed them about your concerns by pasting your messages. I hope they can get back to you guys soon.

Hope this helps.

Timur

The issue is finally resolved; took almost 2 months to merit a response but now's all good.

However, in my case the problem is still not solved. Dear Timur, please get control over this. I also want my work to be paid for.

Dear Marina,

I can not get control over this as I am not connected to this foundation. I work for the Japanese University and I have been contacted just like you and I thought I would mention your concerns to them as a professional courtesy to my fellow colleagues. I think there was a misunderstanding that I am somewhat connected to this foundation.

I hope it will work out for you.

Timur

Dear Marina, I published on my Facebook page about the concerns of International Experts with late payment for peer-review of research proposals from Kazakhstan’s scientific community. I have several people in the list of friends on Facebook from the National Center of Science and Technology Evaluation (NCSTE). I hope they will react soon.

Dear Kairat, thank you very much for your kindness. Thanks to your post in Facebook it started to work for me.

Dear Marina, You are welcome! Always happy to help!

The money has reached my account. Many thanks!

Dear Adel, I hope you will receive payment for your work soon. I think that in my case the process was accelerated thanks to Kairat's post on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/tabynov/posts/1858509237554502

Dear Adel,

I already sent request to NCSTE. Unfortunately they do not work on Saturday and Sunday. Let's wait until Monday. Please use following Facebook link to send your requests and comments directly to NSCTE: https://m.facebook.com/ncste.kz

Best regards,

Kairat

I conducted reviews for them in November 2017, I signed an agreement with them and it indicated payment should be received within 40 days, I have not received my payment despite several e-mails to which I have not received any response. I am a little perturbed because they originally set some strict deadlines for me to get the reviews completed.

Better to reward reviewer indirectly rather than cash like access of journals free of cost for certain period of time, waiver in publication charge.

I sent my evaluations at the end of November, the required documentation for the payment at the end of December but I am still waiting a reply from that email. No reply, no payment. I have contacted through Facebook and mailed my officer a dozen of times. More that four months without an answer. This is not serious.

I have also participated in the evaluation process of 4 research projects of National Center of Science and Technology and Evaluation. I sent my evaluations at end of December and the requerid documentation for the payment at the past January.

Until to date, I have not received the payment for my participation. It is frustrating for me to have worked evaluating projects and not yet having received payment for it. I sent several e-mails to which I have not received any response.

Please, if you have more information about the payment or the person who I could contact, say me.

I just posted on the fb site and my experience here has been extremely frustrating. My fb post is below:

I have filled out so many different forms for payment that I'm beginning to think this is just a scam. I'm attaching the information again that you requested. I've sent this "Expert Info" form to you before, possibly multiple times! Please keep in mind that you must follow the directions on the additional form that I am sending. My bank is too small to receive and international transfer so it must go through a larger bank first. I just did this with someone in Australia and it worked just fine. I'm not sure what the problem is with you or your organization. You seem to have lost this form that I have already sent. If everything is ok and the payment just takes time to be sent that is fine, but please just tell me when I should expect to receive payment so I can watch for it. If for some reason the payment can't be sent, then please tell me that too. If that is the case, I will report this to state and federal government so that other US scientists are not taken advantage of. This really feels like a scam. I'm losing patience with this and don't feel respected and there hasn't been much trust established here. I have sent everything required, but my emails result in LONG delays and then odd replies asking me for information I've already sent.

Please, someone has some news about the payment of the evaluation of these projects. They told me three weeks ago that in two weeks they would pay me but they did not yet. I wrote them again and they do not answer me.

It's frustrating that the emails are not been answered. I would like that someone could provide more information about this problem with NCSTE.

I have recently received the following information from my officer:

Also regarding current payment procedure: 

After reorganization and merging with national company in Almaty we lost efficiency and freedom of action financially. 

As I was told payment procedure and budget itself undergoes severe bureacratic steps: 

1. Given budget was spent before year of 2018 and new budget was defended and set not long ago. Nevertheless budget is beeing received not by single tranche.

2. Second wave of payments was initiated only after February 23rd and was stopped during mid-March new wave of payments should start in April (at least we were assured so). 

Since I submitted all scanned agreements of experts who I worked with right after the end of evaluation process I decided to take couple vacations.

It is my bad not to keep you updated. Nevertheless I didn't want to give false promises with the exact date of payment since currently Financial Department is not keeping us informed. We couldn't establish relationship of instant feedback with Financial Department. 

It is little frustrating since we cannot proceed and keep situation in our hands and understand how dissappointing and insulting it might seem from perspective of our expert. 

However one thing is for sure: Payment will be done, otherwise this organization will not be able to receive and defend new budget for next year. Furthermore inner and outer audit usually check payment history first. 

We hope for your patience and understanding. 

Thank you very much for this information, Pilar. Please, we will keep in touch for any furthermore information

I have recently received the following information from Aizhan Bestembayeva . I am still wondering if this is a spam. Anyone has received the payment.

Dear Dr **,

Could you please fill in the excel file attached (' _application for courier ') with your details for the courier service to pick up the signed hard copies of the documents (agreement and evaluation forms also attached).  They will contact you to arrange the pick up. Kindly ask you to sign with blue pen not putting the date (only sign)

Dear colleagues,

Does anyone else received the payment along this last month? I have not received anything (payment or news) yet.

I received the payment the last month. I hope you will receive payment for your evaluations soon.

I have finally received the payment. Thanks to everyone who provide support in this forum.

Hello Everyone,

I have also received email, if it is not scam I should register.

thanks for the discussion which make me clear.

I have also received payment from my review. Relatively easy process. Good luck.

Considering the number of people they sent it to and the relative difficulty of follow through. Anyways 250$ isn't that much for all the needed work but it just looks like a scam. Pay one peson and don't 500. The 500 will do the work as one person got paid.

Simple rule if you do the review, do it as a volentary process and not to get paid.

hello sir

i alsogot this email yesterday is i fake organisation or nt pls confirm

I like to help developing countries if I can but was wondering the same thing as everyone else: Is it real? From the forum I guess it’s seems legitimate but it also appears as though they have plenty of reviewers helping out. Maybe I won’t.

Dear colleagues! Peter R Ryan Sofiane Achiche Anupreet Kaur

The information given is real. NCSTE periodically involves foreign experts to review reports of already funded projects and new proposals of the Kazakhstani scientists. In this link (https://www.ncste.kz/ru/foreign-experts) you can see a database of foreign experts (over 2000 experts) who are already involved in the review process. I hope the information provided was useful, good luck!

In the attachment I am sending you the approved instruction on the organization and conduct of scientific and technical expertise of NCSTE (unfortunately, the document is in Russian only).

Yes! I have received the same email I was wondering if it was legit

I have also get the invitation:

Title: invitation NCSTE Kazakhstan

From: "Yelzhas Kystaubayev"

To: undisclosed-recipients

*Dear Expert,* NCSTE invites you to participate in the peer-reviewing process of technical and scientific projects. The payment for assessing a research proposal is $250 (USD). One expert may assess up to 10 research proposals per call. The calls are expected to be announced throughout the year. Also, we have introduced automated information system https://is.ncste.kz/, which facilitates the evaluation process and excludes the paper work. If you are interested in cooperation and would like to be a member of our peer-review expertise, please use the provided link: https://is.ncste.kz/ toregister into our information database. Please note, that NCSTE expects your H-index to be equal 5 or above according to Scopus or Web of Science databases for a particular period 2015-2019.You can use the provided links to find out your H-index: https://www.scopus.com/ https://webofknowledge.com/ In case your H-index is lower than 5, we still include you into our database, however, won’t be able to use your service until it reaches 5. To choose relevant scientific field please refer to the “IRSTI classifiers” (InternationalRubricatorOf Scientific And Technical Information).This field is mandatory to be assigned to the relevant proposals. If you are not available to cooperate with our Center, please, let us know. All information about our Center you can find here: https://www.ncste.kz/en/main. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

I have visited their webpage and it looks real, but I am not sure. The message which I got dont have any sign - Who is Yelzhas Kystaubayev.

It is common to put all your information at the end of the e-mail but in this message it is not the case.

On the registration web page, they ask scanned passport documents, all of your diplomas etc. If it is fake webpage, someone could get lots of your documents from you.

I am still suspicious about this.

I have also got an invitation from NCSTE. It seems real but I wanna collaborate as a voluntary reviewer same as my previous collaboration with many peer-review journals.

I have recently responded to an invitation from NCSTE. I was suspicious, but the approach and website were professional. Also, although I parted with some personal information this was no more than I have routinely provided on-line in similar circumstances. I was particularly persuaded, because I was not asked to provide any financial details. However, for the moment, I am still not sufficiently convinced to provide any financial details (if and when the time comes for this).

I also received this invitation. I registered and got confirmed as expert. The information is that once you are confirmed as expert, you should provide bank account details. Is it safe to give this details?

Wycliffe - I advise caution, as suggested in my earlier contribution to this discussion (see above).

Geoffrey Thomas Pugh , Thank you! At the moment, I will not provide my bank details. I will monitor the case...

I'm also at the bank details stage but I'm a bit sceptical about it.

Has anyone reviewed a proposal and got paid?

We need someone, who completed the whole process, to share her/his experiences?

I've received the same invitation. However, already in the personal info page they ask for e.g. passport numbers which I decided not to provide. Further, they want also scanned passport, mobile number etc.. After approval, they don't just ask for bank details but also for bank account statement which obviously includes lots of personal data! In all, it seems like a very smart social engineering attempt; they can definitely abuse this confidential information. Well, I will use this as a case for my Introduction to Information Systems class on IT security.

I've done reviews for them for several years. They are developing in their process for handling grant reviews ... usually the process was very frustrating as their website was poor and you had to mail back paper copies of all your reviews, and their English wasn't always great so I didn't understand the directions for how to do it. However, they get better every year, and this year reviewing for them was WAY less stressful than reviewing for the U.S. dept. of Education.

I would not go for that

https://conductscience.com/what-is-grant-proposal-peer-review/

I received an invitation from a Zhanna Murat from the www.ncste.kz by email, without any professional signature whatsoever. She (or he) invited me to look in the assignment folder of the evaluation system, and I accepted three tasks. Then I asked her for more information about her professional contact information, such as telephone number and address, and she answered "My name is Zhanna, this is our work email!" and then removed me from all three evaluations, though I started working on the first assignment. Not a good feeling here guys.