Reforming the state governance: A perspective of project management innovations and contract service expertise.

The article examines current conditions and prerequisites for the development of project management and contract employment in the civil service system with a specific view of the Republic of Kazakhstan experience. Global innovative trends and the Industry 5.0 paradigm have significantly changed approaches to project management in recent years. The innovative value creation allows successfully implementing projects, optimizing the costs of time, money, and human resources, without deviating from the planned quality of the final product of the project (Malik et al., 2019). The research implies several methods (retrospective and comparative analysis, scenario forecasting) to analyze data received from surveys (10,942 civil servants) and interviews with 24 experts from governmental and non-governmental organizations. The findings highlight the main emphasis on improving the quality of human capital and transitioning to “flexible” management tools. However, opponents assume that new methods will bring “chaos” to state apparatus, undermine the foundation of national security, and change the achieved level of checks and balances. Thus, the proposed solutions with two scenarios in mind could be a potential benefit or introduce uncertainty for the country. Based on this assumption, the article proposes key recommendations for the full implementation of these new innovative institutions for the Kazakhstani civil service.