UK-Ukraine Twinning: in conversation with Dr Andrii Zharikov

It is always difficult to start international institutional collaboration from scratch, and especially so when one of the partners is directly affected by war. However, I am very proud of colleagues both at Odesa and UoP whose immense dedication has made it possible to turn this initiative into a thriving endeavour. 

Of course, not every ambition has been satisfied (not least due to the current situation in Ukraine and resultant travel and resource restrictions in place), yet we made a great effort in turning our collaboration into a sustainable and effective long-term partnership. 

From its early days our priority was to engage in research activities and establish mutual links between our respective research communities. The idea was to bring as many research-active academics as was possible into this collaboration, so that we could develop not only institutional, but individual links for future cooperation. 
 

I think that our initial strategy of involving broad research communities at both institutions was the right choice that effectively cemented the long-term partnership success. 

We had twenty-six bilateral interdisciplinary research collaboration projects, all of which were aimed at enhancing Ukrainian economic development and welfare. Projects spanned technology (developing carbon-fibre-adhesive composite repairs and innovative constructional composites for enhancing damaged infrastructure), biomedicine (developing the domestic market for implants to support reconstructive and restorative surgery), business and management (fintech as a fence for the shock and fuel for the recovery), education (the impact of war on students in higher education), preserving cultural capital (puppetry in the face of war), etc. 

The results have been impressive too and included over 30 publications and even more conference presentations. With the support of the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science, we were able to host a ‘virtual roadshow’ showcasing the results of all projects to the wider Ukrainian academic community and a number of our proposals were implemented in the Odesa City Economic and Social Development Strategy. 

All of the above would not have been possible without the supreme dedication of joint academic teams (especially from Odesa, who have been functioning in extremely challenging circumstances and yet able to produce high quality work) and continuous support from senior management of both institutions. 

Absolutely. We used the additional funding to support two projects, which were identified as priority by OPNU given their initial findings, in their pursuit of further research activities. 

The first related to the evaluation of opportunities for prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse of food waste in Ukraine. In the first round of this project a quantitative survey of owners, managers and employees of retail SMEs in Ukraine (85 in total) took place in which respondents identified barriers and incentives to food waste management. Consequently, these were analysed along with current state policies and best sector practices. With the additional funding in place it was possible to develop materials and organise educational workshops on food waste management SMEs in the Odesa region (around 50 attendees in total), that also involved input from local authorities and dedicated charities. 

The other project related to the analysis of fuel station risk mapping and decision-making optimisation. The joint team collected data about fuel stations in Odesa and Portsmouth and then developed an enhanced risk analysis model comprising of over forty criteria. Given the current security situation in Ukraine, some of the findings of this study will not be published in open literature. 

However, the overall AI-enhanced model will be a useful tool for urban planning and local authorities for an analysis of the vulnerability factors of a fuel station incident in terms of lives lost and negative economic, environmental and social sustainability consequences with mapping capability.

Despite existing travel restrictions and uncertainty created by the circumstances of war, we are actively working with OPNU on enhancement of our partnership. Given the successful foundations we laid out from the outset of our collaboration, research remains central to our activities. A number of our mutual teams have started new projects, continued publishing together, submitted new research bids and/or presented at conferences. 

However, we are also looking at other directions of cooperation apart from research, such as double degree educational programmes, and training programmes for staff and student society linkages. We also established an Odesa Postgraduate Bursary under which we support masters students from OPNU in their doctoral studies at the UoP. 
 

I think that UUKi has done some tremendous work and put a lot of effort into establishing the network at the most crucial time for the Ukrainian academic sector. The bilateral institutional framework is up and running, and I think the next step may be considering linking up Twinning partnerships into certain hubs depending on the focus of their activities. Joining efforts with other twin pairs would possibly allow for more effective use of resources and create broader opportunities for collaboration. 

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