In August 2026, the team of the Laboratory of Neuromarketing and Neuromanagement at AlmaU spent a month in Riga, Latvia, at EKA University of Applied Sciences (Ekonomikas un kultūras augstskola). The visit was carried out within the framework of the Erasmus+ academic mobility programme and focused on exchanging expertise with Latvian colleagues, planning joint research projects, and exploring new areas of cooperation.
The partnership between AlmaU and EKA is built around a shared interest in applied neuroscience in business, practice-oriented education, and the development of neuromarketing and neuromanagement as academic and professional fields in response to the changing needs of today’s world.
The AlmaU delegation included Akdana Abuzhalitova, Head of the Laboratory, and researchers Alexandra Pankratova and Gulsanat Bekenova.
During the visit, the AlmaU team conducted a series of training sessions for EKA staff covering the laboratory’s key areas of expertise, including neuromarketing and neuromanagement methods, research design, and the interpretation of data related to respondents’ behaviour and attention.
In turn, EKA colleagues introduced the Kazakhstan team to CleverPoint VR technology and provided practical training on how to use the equipment.
CleverPoint is a platform that integrates physiological sensors directly into a VR headset. While a participant is immersed in a virtual environment, the system simultaneously records brain electrical activity, eye movements, facial muscle activity, and heart rate. This allows researchers to obtain an objective picture of attention, stress, engagement, and emotional responses—areas where conventional surveys can provide only subjective assessments.
The combination of VR environments with physiological measurements expands the methodological capabilities of research laboratories and opens up new research applications, ranging from education and recruitment to product and service testing.
Research Project for ARS Medical Centre
A key part of the visit was a field research project conducted by a joint international team from the AlmaU and EKA laboratories for ARS Medical Centre (Medicīnas sabiedrība ARS), one of Latvia’s largest private multidisciplinary healthcare institutions.
The study focused on a newly developed information system designed for internal use by the medical centre’s key stakeholders.
Using static eye-tracking, the research team examined how the system was used by its actual users-doctors and registration staff. This method makes it possible to observe not only what people say about their experience, but also what actually happens to their behaviour and visual attention while they interact with the system.
For the AlmaU Laboratory of Neuromarketing and Neuromanagement, the project provided valuable experience in international applied research and the practical use of research methods in a real-world organisational setting. For the partners, it generated practical insights based on objective data about users’ behaviour and responses.
The data collected during the project may form the basis for a joint AlmaU-EKA research publication in an international peer-reviewed journal.
Following the visit, the two institutions agreed to further deepen their cooperation. Future plans include joint research initiatives, faculty and student exchanges, and the development of joint educational solutions in the fields of neuromarketing and neuromanagement.
Within the broader implementation of AlmaU’s strategy, projects of this kind form part of the university’s systematic efforts to strengthen its integration into the international research community and to develop the laboratory as a platform where academic methods can be applied to real-world challenges faced by business and the public sector.
For reference: The AlmaU Laboratory of Neuromarketing and Neuromanagement studies consumer behaviour and decision-making processes using neuroscience-based methods.