in 2005 bulat sultanov was appointed the director of the kaziss, who converted his extensive diplomatic experience into a broader cooperation of the institute with foreign research and analytical institutions. the kaziss established partnership relations with the number of european, primarily german structures, namely the german council on foreign relations (dgap), the german institute for international and security affairs (swp), the friedrich ebert foundation (fes), george c. marshall european center for security studies. the cooperation of the kaziss expanded and included asian partners in china (shanghai institute for international studies), india (jawaharlal nehru university) as well as russia (the russian institute for strategic studies, the institute of world economy and international relations, the diplomatic academy of the ministry of foreign affairs of the russian federation).