On the 22nd of May 2013 Altau State University (Barnaul, Russia) welcomed 27 delegations from 8 countries including the delegation from D. Serikbayev EKSTU headed by rector Nurlan Temirbekov. The participants of the founding congress were the university rectors from Kazakhstan, Russia, Germany, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, China, Mongolia and Tajikistan. 

The main idea of founding the Association of Asian Universities came a year before at the International Asian students’ forum “Altay-Asia 2012”. It was also decided to get united into the Association for the integration, mutual cooperation and academic exchange. During the year, higher education institutions made a lot of work: agreed on the basic provisions of the Constitution of the Association, Memorandums, working with the public and state agencies. In the Russian Federation, the international project was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Altai Krai Administration and other government and non-governmental organizations. The founding congress of the Association was an important step towards opening new horizons of international networking and multilateral cooperation, education, science and culture. The Memorandum on the establishment of the Association was signed at the congress. The program document was sealed with the signatures of the heads of Asian universities united in one association.- We signed the document and thus took the responsibility for the work of the Association, - The Rector of S. ZEMLYUK ASU said. - From the contribution of each of us depends on how our social organization will be accepted in the world educational space. After the official part the Charter and the emblem of the Association was discussed and adopted and its leaders were elected. By the unanimous decision rector of the ASU S.Zemlyukov was elected the President of the Association. Also from each country participating in the leadership vice-president was nominated. From the Kazakh universities rector of our University Nurlan Temirbekov was elected the vice-president of the Association.