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Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ukrainian universities have been working to build links with their global counterparts, making the most of support offered from institutions around the world.

Bibliometric data sourced by ����Vlog for the World University Rankings reveal that the total number of research papers that Ukrainian universities produced with global collaborators increased by 20 per cent between 2019 and 2023, to 9,708. In comparison, Russia’s global collaborations were down by 8 per cent over the same period, supporting other figures that show the war has triggered a collapse in Russia’s international research collaborations. While the time it takes for research to be published and the impact of the pandemic mean the trend is not clear cut, the data suggest that the war has contributed to a growing number of partnerships between Ukrainian academics and their international peers.

“Before the full-scale war, although we had some international cooperation and we had some experience with it, we never actually had strong strategic partnerships,” says Olena Tupakhina, vice-rector for international affairs at Zaporizhzhia National University.

Her institution is taking part in Twinning Ukraine, a scheme that sets up partnerships between Ukrainian and UK universities, coordinated by the Cormack Consultancy Group. It is twinned with Durham University, and the pair are collaborating on research in the areas of history, anthropology, psychology, law, and risks and hazards. One such project is documenting the impact of the military hazards on the Ukrainian landscape and nature.

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“We are making virtual reality tours across the militarily affected areas for the researchers who are not allowed to travel to Ukraine,” Tupakhina says.

Students, academics and administration staff from Zaporizhzhia National University have visited Durham. “One of the common misinterpretations of internationalisation is that it’s only for academic segments of university activity or only for research – but, in fact, it’s a very complex project, engaging all the layers and all the levels of the university infrastructure. You cannot have one department internationalised, the other not so much, because you need those services and structures working together and understanding what internationalisation is,” Tupakhina says.

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The collaboration boosts the spirits of staff and academics at Zaporizhzhia National, where all classes take place online but administration staff work from the campus, where air raid alarms can go off up to 20 times a day, Tupakhina adds.

Universities outside Ukraine also benefit from the partnerships. The University of Birmingham’s Lisa Webley, a professor of legal education and research, is working on a rule-of-law dictionary, a “handbook” for constitutional democracy in Ukraine, in partnership with academics at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv and Ukraine’s Constitutional Court. She stresses the benefits to her students of being involved in the project.

“This is a way of doing something positive and non-aggressive, but hopefully empowering for the future. And that’s been important,” she says. “Some of the students have said how important it has been to be working in a partnership with other students and knowing that there are students in Ukraine and academics in Ukraine all working on something.”

Igor Kotsiuba, assistant professor in financial technology and security at Durham University Business School, moved from Ukraine to the UK with his two daughters at the outbreak of war. He has used his connections back home to build research links and believes that when the time comes to rebuild Ukraine there will be a unique opportunity for scientists and engineers to put their research into practice.

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“Very often amazing [research] results are left on the shelf,” he says, but Ukraine could provide a place for pilot projects, for example on rebuilding cities more sustainably, he suggests. “All this cooperation? I think it’s mutually beneficial.”

rosa.ellis@timeshighereducation.com