“The Path to Ukraine's Recovery" - UCU launches international educational course

This course aims to seek solutions for Ukraine's recovery, with the outcome being a series of projects presented to Ukrainian and international partners.

The Ukrainian Catholic University has enlisted instructors from Harvard, Syracuse University, Stanford, Oxford, the University of Notre Dame, and the Institute of Nanoscience, University of Colorado. These international mentors have expertise in fields such as jurisprudence, security policy, design, business, investigative journalism, management, and sustainable economic development.

The course is headed by Sofia Opatska, Vice-Rector of UCU and the founding dean of the UCU Business School. Among the instructors are Volodymyr Turchynovsky, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Yarina Boichuk, head of the Business School, and Natalia Oboznenko, academic director of LvBS.

"In the university's orbit, there are many high-class international experts and instructors. Most of them visited UCU after the full-scale invasion. They care about Ukraine and want to share their expertise. It is essential for us that our students have the opportunity to work with such people on very specific initiatives. We have already formed a series of projects in various directions: post-war reconstruction, artificial intelligence utilization, national security architecture, and others. Therefore, students from various programs should find this course interesting and beneficial. At UCU, we strive for knowledge to be shaped at intersections," says Sofia Opatska.

Volodymyr Turchynovsky, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, believes that Ukraine has significant potential that can and should be used to build new models of social development:

"How can we transform our moral energy, solidarity, and experience of fighting for our freedom into victory, a just peace, and sustainable development and the reconstruction of Ukraine? This is a question that we, as a university community, pose to ourselves. One of the key insights is that Ukraine today is not just a battlefield but also a unique laboratory where innovations are born and new models and practices of social development are tested. The 'Road to Recovery' course, initiated by the Business School and the Faculty of Social Sciences, is aimed at harnessing Ukraine's potential as a laboratory," explains Volodymyr Turchynovsky.

The course's outcome will be 5 to 7 projects (policies, specific examples, project developments) by students, which will become part of the UCU 2030 strategy and will be implemented in cooperation with Ukrainian and international partners.

Throughout the semester, students will work in small working groups under the guidance of leading international experts on researching a specific problem (data collection, interviews, and analysis) and designing ways and models to address it.

The research tasks will focus on the following areas:

- Building resilient communities and institutions.
- The role of the university in times of war and post-war reconstruction.
- Journalism in action: telling the ecological challenges of Ukraine using artificial intelligence tools.
- Constructing the legal architecture of national security.

UCU has engaged international experts from a wide range of universities and expertise in many fields to create this course.