A circular economy is an economic system in which resources are used, reused, and regenerated in a closed loop, rather than the traditional linear model of extraction, use, and disposal. The topic is particularly urgent for emerging countries as it can help address many of the economic, environmental, and social challenges these countries face. This article aims to analyze the current state of circular economy development in Kazakhstan and its progress in implementing circularity principles over the years. The research was conducted in two stages: (1) a statistical analysis based on secondary data, which identifies patterns and trends in waste recycling; (2) a regression model for evaluating the impact of management costs on the level of recycling and reuse of waste in Kazakhstan. The data was collected for the period from 2015 to 2021. The results show that solid waste recycling has increased more than 11 times, while the municipal waste generation rate per capita slightly decreased. The regression analysis demonstrates that increasing management costs does not have the desired effect on the reuse and recycling of waste, backing the previous research results about the importance of other factors like environmental consciousness and state regulation. Despite the general positive changes, the progress of Kazakhstan in implementing a circular economy is still in its early stages. The article can provide valuable insights to policymakers and researchers in Kazakhstan on ways of assessing the waste management system and promoting a circular economy in the country. Keywords: circular economy, waste management, regression analysis, environmental consciousness

In the current era of overconsumption, transition to circular economy is a relevant problem for every country in the world. The main idea behind this economic approach is to break the link between rising wealth and overexploitation of primary natural resources. The article assessed the current and future state of the circular economy’s development in 27 countries of the European Union. The assessment was carried out using Data Envelopment Analysis based on data for 2019 of selected input and output parameters described by the circular economy. Generation of municipal waste per capita, Water exploitation index, Final energy consumption and Social Progress Index were used as input parameters. Circular material use rate and municipal waste recycling rate were output parameters. All data was collected from official reliable sources such as Eurostat, and the Social Progress Imperative website. The study results showed that as of 2019, 40,74% of European countries have high efficiency in the advancement of circular economy, 40,74% - sufficient, 11,11% - medium and 7.41% - low efficiency. However, the analysis showed very good prospects for the future progress of the circular economy in these countries, since the overall efficiency results in the CCR model range from 0.899 to 1 for all countries in the European Union. With the implementation of the New Circular Economy Action Plan, which was adopted in 2020 by the European Commission, the EU countries have the opportunity to fully turn to the circular economy and ensure the healthy, sustainable development of countries.

Evaluating the effectiveness of research activities is one of the topical issues in the higher education system. Despite this, studies on the extensive assessment of research units' outputs at the university are rare. The main goals of this study are (1) the development of a comprehensive methodology for assessing the research performance of the units; (2) testing this methodology to compare the performance indicators of 37 research institutes and centers. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were applied in this study. Research results can be beneficiary for government bodies, allowing them to make decisions about the allocation or reallocation of funding and top management in higher education for benchmarking and internal performance evaluation of research institutes and centers. This article contributes to the theoretical basis of research performance evaluation at HEIs and puts forward a step-by-step methodology.