Educational Research of Ukrainian Scholars on Europe and America

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has unfortunately renewed global interest in the country, highlighting the importance of understanding its complexities and challenges. This article aims to shed light on the perspectives and research of Ukrainian scholars focusing on Europe and America, reflecting current trends in the study of Ukraine. These scholars offer unique insights into the challenges and opportunities facing Ukraine, providing practical suggestions for the academic community.

The Enduring Importance of Studying Ukraine

Despite the tragic circumstances, the study of Ukraine remains vitally important. The country faces immense challenges due to the full-scale aggression, it must secure a just peace, uphold democracy and social cohesion, address a potential demographic crisis, and rebuild its economy and infrastructure. Scholars can play a crucial role in identifying and understanding these challenges, contextualizing them within broader academic frameworks.

Beyond the immediate impacts of the war, the study of Ukrainian literature, art, and culture remains essential. Ukraine also presents a relevant case study for scholars examining various phenomena, including mass protest, national identity, democratization, decentralization, and anti-corruption reforms. There is no shortage of critical questions about Ukraine that demand scholarly attention.

Some of the significant questions include:

What would constitute a just peace for Ukrainians, and how can it be achieved?
What tensions are emerging within Ukrainian society that could pose challenges after the war?
What impact is the trauma of war having on the Ukrainian population?

The world can learn valuable lessons from Ukraine, even during wartime. For instance, factors that have helped Ukraine's state and institutions withstand the aggression, the resilience of its civil society during conflict, innovations in public services and governance (such as the 'Diya' app), military advances on the battlefield, and strategies for combating disinformation and hybrid warfare.

Research on Ukrainian Protest and Civil Society

Much research focuses on Ukrainian protest and civil society. Studies mapped nationwide protest events during the Euromaidan, and earlier mass protests, seeking to understand the patterns. This history of activism and civil society explains the levels of resistance seen in Ukraine following the full-scale invasion.

Current postdoctoral work examines civilian wartime engagement. The research focuses on the actions and motivations of Ukrainian civilians who chose to stay in their place of residence and engage in the war effort as non-combatants. The work focuses on Bakhmut, Chernihiv, and Dnipro, as three cities which experienced high levels of threat but very different wartime conditions.

The huge variety of ways in which ordinary Ukrainians were contributing to their country’s resistance is incredible. It’s crucial that we keep working to understand the actions and dynamics of Ukraine’s civil society in wartime, because it will impact so many things - civilians not only continue to provide vital support for the military, and fill in gaps left by the state during all-out war. Their experience and skills also have the potential to play a hugely valuable role in reconstruction and recovery of the country.

A Longer-Term Perspective on Ukraine

A longer-term perspective on Ukraine is still largely absent. Ukrainians have experienced centuries of Russia consistently undermining their identity, sovereignty and independence. It’s crucial to consider Ukraine’s history with Russian imperialism, in order to understand why Ukrainians are so afraid of an incomplete, negotiated settlement to end the war. History shows them that Russia will just come back for more - this is why Ukrainians want security guarantees.

The resistance that we have witnessed in response to all-out war is not an aberration. Ukraine has had multiple mass mobilisations where people have called for greater democracy, freedom and independence from Russia, and Ukraine had the highest number of dissidents per capita of any of the Soviet republics. The country has a long history of resistance.

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There should be a greater appreciation for Ukraine as a country, beyond that of a state at war. Ukraine is so much more than a place of violence.

Research Access and Research Ethics

Research access and research ethics are important considerations for those of us working on Ukraine today. The wartime context poses a whole host of challenges. Fieldwork will be permitted by some of our institutions, but even where it is allowed, we need to think carefully about whether and why it is necessary, how we can minimize the risks. We must ensure that we do not put additional strain on the resources of colleagues and institutions in Ukraine. Moreover, many of us may be familiar with Ukraine, or the wider region - but we have never done research in conflict zones before. In contexts when travel to Ukraine is not possible, or preferable, how can we still ethically do research? We should not be relying on Ukrainian colleagues to assume all the risks of data collection such as interviews or focus groups, only to be credited in our acknowledgements. How can we work alongside and support our Ukrainian colleagues and research assistants? Even when we are relying on data like online/telephone surveys and government statistics, which are less risky to collect, we need to think carefully about what groups these data may or may not be representing. Who doesn’t answer the phone? Who doesn’t speak freely? Who has been displaced beyond Ukraine’s borders?

There are some great datasets out there, particularly from Ukraiian institutions. REESources, the educational platform of Lviv Center for Urban History, has a large wealth of original, primary sources available, of interest for historians, social scientists, and scholars of culture. Kyiv School of Economics also has wide-reaching datasets for local-level data in Ukraine, which cover social, economic, demographic and administrative variables.

Ukrainiska Pravda is a long standing independent Ukrainian newspaper, which has a good English-language site with concise articles. The Kyiv Independent is also a young, English-language media outlet, co-founded by Ukrainian journalists in November 2021, that has been producing some great reporting.

Supporting Ukrainian Studies in Academia

Several institutions and programs are dedicated to supporting Ukrainian studies and displaced scholars.

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University of California, Berkeley

The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at UC Berkeley is expanding its Ukrainian studies offerings. The department is halfway to its fundraising goal of $9 million and began the campaign in December 2023 with a $3 million launch gift from the Open Society Foundations, a grant-making network working for democracy and human rights. The gift brings enormous hope for the future of the study of Ukrainian language, literature, and culture. Berkeley’s current Ukrainian studies offerings encompass many fields that give students a broad, interdisciplinary understanding of the country.

The scholar who is awarded the chancellor’s chair role will be a new addition to Berkeley’s arts and humanities faculty and will use a programmatic fund to support research, teaching, graduate students, and other academic pursuits in Ukrainian studies.

Other campus units, such as the Institute of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies and the University Library, also contribute to Ukrainian studies at Berkeley. The UC Berkeley-Ukraine Innovation Hubs was launched last May by Ukrainian officials, Berkeley professors Anastassia Fedyk and Yuriy Gorodnichenko, and Chancellor Rich Lyons.

Berkeley has until the summer of 2025 to raise another $3 million to endow the chancellor’s chair. At that point, the campus will contribute an additional $3 million, funding the position in perpetuity and ensuring that scholars of Ukrainian studies always have a home at Berkeley. If successful, Berkeley’s Slavic scholars hope the chairholder will build up the program to eventually include a Center for Ukrainian Studies.

American Councils for International Education

American Councils for International Education is implementing a new phase of the Ukrainian Displaced Scholars (UDS) Program, made possible through the generous support of Carnegie Corporation of New York. This expansion strengthens Ukrainian universities most affected by the war and provides support to qualified scholars - whether displaced, returned, or working under severe strain-through July 2027.

Launched in autumn 2022, the Ukrainian Displaced Scholars Program addressed the severe damage and dislocation of Ukrainian academics whose lives and livelihood have been profoundly affected by the war. For the 2025-2027 cycle, American Councils will expand the network of eligible universities, aiming to support up to 80 scholars facing the most urgent challenges through individual fellowships and project grants.

The UDS Program supports Ukraine’s scholars who are advancing innovations that will contribute to the country’s recovery and sustain its academic communities. Since the program's inception through July 2025, UDS partnered with 15 Ukrainian universities, predominantly in regions enduring daily air and missile strikes, infrastructure damage, and widespread displacement.

To relieve the shifting needs of scholars, UDS introduced project-based grants starting in 2023, providing flexible funding for departments and scholars to support professional growth and institutional recovery. UDS funds also enabled swift crisis response. After a missile strike on the campus of Sumy State University in May 2025, American Councils mobilized Carnegie program funds to provide $25,000 in emergency response support.

Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University

The Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, in collaboration with American Councils for International Education, has launched Scholars Without Borders (SWB). SWB consists of two interlocking networks.

One focuses on building in-person communities of scholars in the many cities where displaced scholars are now living. Depending on the amount of additional funding we can raise, we will provide opportunities for professional and social gatherings, intensive English and local-language courses, and guest lectures from visiting international academics. We are keen to work with local universities that recognize the talent now at their doorstep and hope to raise money to improve the electronic library resources available at these universities for both local and displaced scholars.

The second network is virtual and organized along disciplinary lines. We are reaching out to the many academics in North America and worldwide who have expressed a desire to help but find themselves constrained by limited funding or administrative capacity. Academics from the approximately 50 fields represented in the 2022 survey lead virtual workshops in their disciplines once or twice a semester for war-impacted scholars now dispersed across Eurasia and Europe.

Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame

Building on a 20-year partnership with Ukrainian Catholic University, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies launched the Ukrainian Studies Hub in September 2023. The Hub leads and coordinates educational and research initiatives, serving as a platform for fostering partnerships with Ukraine and responding to the critical challenges facing Ukrainians and the global community.

In 2024, the Nanovic Institute committed $100,000 for a Research Grant aimed at funding projects that explore essential aspects of Ukrainian studies, including religious, moral, and social issues, as well as resilience and justice. Notably, the Hub hosted its first biennial conference, “Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine,” at Notre Dame in March 2025, uniting students and scholars from Ukrainian Catholic University, Notre Dame, and institutions around the world that engage with Ukraine.

The Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program offers faculty at Notre Dame and UCU the opportunity to co-design and co-teach a joint course with a COIL component, bringing Ukrainian and US students into a shared virtual classroom. The Ukrainian Studies Hub hosts a biennial conference focused on Ukraine and Ukrainian studies.

American Association for Ukrainian Studies (AAUS)

AAUS is governed by an elected Executive Board comprised of a President, Vice President, Secretary-Treasurer, and At-Large members. AAUS holds membership meetings twice a year, during the annual conventions of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in the fall and Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) in the spring.

Since 1990, AAUS publishes a newsletter, “The AAUS Visnyk,” which currently appears annually in an electronic format. To further its goal of fostering scholarship in the various fields of Ukrainian studies, the organization awards annual prizes for the best book and the best article in the fields of Ukrainian history, politics, language, literature, and culture, as well as a prize for the translation from Ukrainian into English.

The Impact of War on Ukrainian Scientists and Research

The war has had a devastating impact on Ukrainian science and education. Institutions in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in Kyiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv, Kherson, and other Ukrainian cities, have suffered most from the attacks of the Russian occupiers. As of September 21, the site has recorded 2,528 educational institutions that have been damaged by bombing and shelling, and 285 that have been ruined completely. Many Ukrainians fight in the war, because the alternative of Russian occupation would mean death.

Most of the estimated 79,000 researchers who lived and worked in the country before the war, as well as the far greater number of students they mentored and taught, have been displaced, killed, or involved in war efforts. From the first days of the full-scale invasion in late February, objects of scientific and educational infrastructure were among the targets of Russian shelling. Numerous buildings of scientific institutions and objects of research infrastructure were destroyed, and equipment and laboratories were lost.

The war is not only affecting the overall direction of scientific research, but it is also changing the lives of scientists themselves. Many scientists now serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, have joined the militia reserve called the Territorial Defense Forces, or have become volunteers.

Some scientists have been forced to evacuate from areas of active hostilities. Halyna Kutniakova is a lecturer at the department of social communications of Mariupol State University. With her daughters, she lived in the blockaded Mariupol under conditions of a humanitarian disaster. Kutniakova and her family escaped Mariupol with great difficulty, leaving the city on foot and taking no belongings-only their cat-with them and are now safe in Vilnius, Lithuania. She participates in scientific conferences, tells Ukrainian and international media about her experience, and has testified about Russia’s crimes to human rights organizations, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, and the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU).

Many other Ukrainian scientists, scientific communicators, and university teachers, especially those outside of areas with active combat, are now engaged in volunteer work and charitable activities, such as donating blood for the wounded, making camouflage nets and cloths, helping the army financially, and collecting humanitarian aid, food, and basic necessities for the Ukrainian military and internally displaced persons.

In a survey titled “Ukrainian Researchers in Times of War,” which was conducted by the National Research Foundation of Ukraine in April 2022, the vast majority of the 2,173 participants (72.9 percent) responded “No” when asked if it is now possible to be engaged in research activities to the same extent as in prewar times. Despite these limitations, the academic community fervently believes in the victory of Ukraine and is doing everything possible to achieve it. According to this survey, 74.5 percent of respondents were ready to participate in projects aimed at strengthening defense capabilities and rebuilding Ukraine.

Ukrainian Innovation in the Face of War

Despite the challenges, Ukrainian scientists are contributing to the war effort and developing innovative solutions.

For instance, researchers from Lviv Polytechnic National University (LPNU) have created combat robots for the Ukrainian army. This project started after the beginning of Russian aggression in 2014. Engineers at LPNU have designed and manufactured a number of different experimental and research mobile robotic platforms, complexes, and their modifications. Their uses include intelligence gathering, demining, transport, security, and training.

Ukrainian scientists are also developing new methods for saving people’s lives in the face of military attacks. New hydrogel dressings are being used to bandage burns, trophic ulcers, bedsores, and other wounds. Eight years ago, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its invasion of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, a group of Ukrainian researchers invented a chemical hemostatic agent, called Krovospas, that can effectively save the lives of soldiers in the field by stopping blood loss. The treatment has proven effective during combat operations, at the stage of tactical evacuation, and in mobile field hospitals; it is easy to use and preserves its properties at temperatures from -40 to +50 degrees Celsius and at humidity levels above 95 percent.

A group at LPNU launched another life-saving research effort this year: the production of hydrogel dressings, which accelerate wound healing.

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