Six leading UK universities have officially joined the Global Coalition for Ukrainian Studies and will introduce courses on Ukraine over the next two years. About this toldOlga Budnyk, Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for the Fund of the President of Ukraine for Support of Education, Science and Sports.
“Queen’s University Belfast (Queen’s), St. Andrews – Scotland, yesterday it was Cardiff in Wales, today Cambridge and also USL (University College London – ed.) and the University of Birmingham. These universities are joining the Global Coalition of Ukrainian Studies in order to introduce courses on the study of Ukrainian studies there. We are talking not only about the study of Ukraine in the humanitarian aspect from the point of view of history, culture, literature, our language, but also through science, technology and innovation. Yesterday, Ukrainian universities had the opportunity to present their best developments in the field of security, biotech, medtech and individual components on which they can and will continue to cooperate,”— noted Olga Budnyk.
She emphasized that each visit by the Ukrainian delegation has a separate goal – to promote the study of Ukraine and counter disinformation.
“We promote the study of Ukraine and thus overcome disinformation and Russian narratives among the academic environment, because Russia has penetrated very deeply into all academic institutions. And they invest a lot of money in developing Russian studies. Instead, we propose studying the concept of Ukraine in general and making Ukraine interesting,”— explained the coordinator of the presidential fund.
According to her, the signing of the memorandums in the UK consolidates long-term academic cooperation with British universities. The documents stipulate that within two years these institutions will conduct separate courses, organize events with the participation of distinguished guests, exhibitions, cultural events and joint conferences on Ukraine.
“And this, in turn, will have consequences in the form of foreign students returning to Ukraine, because we will be interesting. We have double degree programs with British universities, which will continue. We will have joint courses that will allow us to study here. And this, accordingly, will allow us to raise our universities in international rankings, and, among other things, will allow Ukraine to destroy the myths that the Russian Federation spreads around us. Because the Russians distort history, they very often appropriate our outstanding figures for themselves. They even created a separate format in Russian English, where the British, not always understanding it, become part of the Russian narrative. And, accordingly, in order for the decolonization of knowledge to take place, this topic is very clear and interesting to them, we are making sure that Ukrainian studies are autonomous from Russian studies,”— Budnik concluded.
