On December 15th 2023 the Erasmus+ project “Promoting Academic Freedom in Ukraine (FreeAc)“ was officially launched during a first online meeting of the consortium. FreeAC, a cooperation partnership in higher education project (2023-1-AT01-KA220-HED-000164930), is a three years project (01/12/2023 – 30/11/2026) primarily aimed to support three partner Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in Ukraine (Odesa International Humanitarian University; Sumy State University; and Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv) to mitigate the direct negative impacts of the war on freedom of academia and its components, i.e. the freedom to teach, study and pursue knowledge and to conduct research freely and without interferences, to be able to disseminate research results and to exchange ideas and results with the wider research community. Under the lead of the UNI-ETC, the consortium composed of Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań (Poland), World University Service (WUS) (Austria), CESIE (Italy) and KMOP (Greece), will support the three aforementioned Ukrainian partner HEI in (re-) connecting them not only with displaced members of their academia (including both students and academic staff) but also with EU HEI by strengthening inter-institutional cooperation making them integral part of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Additionally, with the support of EU partners 1) teaching gaps resulting from the war in Ukraine will be identified and eventually bridged allowing Ukrainian students to continue their studies at the three partner universities; 2) Ukrainian researchers will be supported in disseminating their work within the wider European research community by facilitating guest lectures by Ukrainian academics at the University of Graz and the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań; 3) a process involving various stakeholders will be started aimed at developing a strategic post-war outlook for the sector of higher education in Ukraine.
The project team at the University of Graz include Svitlana Andreichenko, Elias Faller and Lisa Heschl (all UNI-ETC).
We are looking forward to a prosperous and meaningful cooperation. As the website of the project is still under construction, please do not hesitate to contact us for further information.