For most Europeans, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is above all destroyed cities, the blockade of Ukrainian grain exports, civilian casualties and millions of refugees. In the West, people do not understand clearly that the future of Ukraine is, in fact, the future of their countries.
Moreover, there are not only potential problems about natural gas supplies during the cold season and an increase in prices for all kinds of energy supplies, which will inevitably entail price increases in all spheres of life. But there is also a strong possibility of a new migration crisis when many hundred thousand citizens of African and Middle Eastern countries struck by artificial famine, created by Russia, will flee to Europe.
Even worse, Russia is openly committing nuclear blackmail on a world-wide scale. And it is greatly to Ukraine’s credit, its Armed Forces, the Ukrainian people and their allies that the war in Eastern Europe has not escalated the world into another Russian military “special operation”, provoking a third world war.
Ukraine repels vigorously Russian aggression, losing its best sons and daughters every day at the front lines of this war, and civilians including children and the elderly killed in missile attacks on places far from a war zone. For Ukrainians, irrespective of their age, gender or profession, the war is a harsh reality, and it affects everyone.
Higher education institutions are certainly no exception to the grim realities of war, particularly one of the flagships – the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (KPI).
As a matter of fact, Russia’s war raging in Ukraine did not begin on February 24, 2022 but in March 2014.
From the first day of the war, members of the KPI staff and students have been fighting at the front. During the first seven years of the war, fourteen of them sacrificed their lives for the freedom of their Motherland. And four of them were posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine.
When full-scale Russian aggression began in February 2022, many KPI students and employees joined again the ranks of those who defend their Motherland and their University. Some of them swelled the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, others joined Territorial Defense units, the greater part of them engage in volunteer activities.
Twelve KPI students died a hero’s death, bearing arms to defend their Holy Motherland. Meanwhile, KPI persists in implementing its main educational and scientific activities.
Regarding research and innovation, today Ukrainian scientists are conducting more specialized research. The war has proved that it is not only soldiers on the battlefield who can win the war, but also advanced technologies and engineers and scientists in the field of electronics, computer science, new materials or mechanics.
Not surprisingly, the enemy is infuriated that Western partners are increasingly sending sophisticated weapons to Ukraine. But to win this war, Ukraine needs more modern weapons systems.
It is clear that the Ukrainian Armed Forces also use domestic models of advanced weapons, such as the Stugna-P modern anti-tank guided missile system that proved its effectiveness in real combat against Russian armored vehicles and even helicopter gunships, as well as the Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles that sank the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Moskva missile cruiser.
It should be acknowledged that the clumsy system of interaction between science and industry has long been working in Ukraine. Sometimes it took several years to move a concept from hype to prototype and apply research findings into production.
The war forced stakeholders to seek out new organizational forms. In 2015 KPI created a new model of the association of research/innovative organizations and industrial enterprises. The association was called the innovation-production platform Kyivska Polytechnika because it was KPI that became its nucleus. In addition to the University, this platform comprises seven industrial enterprises and the science park Kyivska Polytechnika.
This model enables the development and implementation of new breakthrough projects, and the manufacture of modern products.
In this context, consider the festival of startup projects Sikorsky Challenge. Named for Igor Sikorsky, outstanding innovator in aircraft design and KPI graduate, this festival-cum-competition has been held annually at KPI since 2011. It is a platform not only for cherry-picking the best projects evaluated by an international jury, but also for arranging meetings of researchers and startup founders with the potential investors who are representatives of investment funds, venture capital firms, and government authorities, among others. Remarkably, contracts to commercialize the engineering developments that look promising are concluded with investors on the spot.
A record number of over 300 innovative projects were submitted to the Sikorsky Challenge festival last year. Ukrainian scientists and engineers showcased prototypes of robotics, modules and unmanned aerial vehicles, and other innovative developments. Importantly, the festival has developed into a recognized platform to formulate strategies and form partnerships.
The new stage of the war dictates to the government of Ukraine, the organizations that provide support for the development of science, and research institutions, including KPI, how to work in such conditions.
Take, for example, Israel, which successfully beefs up national security by its own advanced technologies and breakthrough scientific solutions in the unfriendly encirclement lasting more than 70 years. Ukraine should adopt this experience.
Despite the war, the University persists in performing its chief mission – specialist training. Industry needs competent specialists. It is essential to keep Ukraine’s economy going during wartime.
In the circumstances about 19,000 KPI students pursue their studies online, including some 500 foreign nationals. International relations are developing.
After defending their right to live in the sovereign country, Ukrainians will return to a peaceful life.
The war-torn country will need to be rebuilt, particularly the regions that lie in moonlike ruins.
Obviously, it will be necessary to make Ukraine a modern, efficient, country whose economy is to be focused on knowledge-intensive industries with high standards of innovation.
At the same time, Ukrainians will revive national traditions; they will cultivate their national culture and restore their real history, not the history invented in Moscow.
All this will require people who are well educated, aware of current trends in technology, familiar with the latest scientific discoveries, able to cooperate with their foreign peers and communicate in foreign languages. They will need professional skills as well as an interdisciplinary approach and understanding of the relationship between different disciplines, technologies and practices.
These builders of the renovated Ukraine should be trained today, therefore the University endeavors to maintain its traditionally strong scientific schools, and, on the other hand, to deepen cooperation with international educators and scientists.
Especially as KPI is a member of several international associations of higher education institutions, including the European University Association (EUA), the Black Sea Universities Network (BSUN), and the Network of Universities from the Capitals of Europe (UNICA). Currently, signing of documents about KPI’s entry into the CESAER association of European universities of science and technology is in progress.
KPI has been the only Ukrainian university representing Ukraine in the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) Initiative since 2011.
At the same time, KPI may offer its partners several areas of collaboration as it has strong fundamental physical sciences schools and high-tech developments in the field of aerospace research, nanotechnology, and cyber security, among other things.
In spite of the war, KPI students and academics participate in the programs of academic mobility, involve international partners in consortia to implement research projects via grant programs, cooperate in projects under bilateral programs with universities of EU countries.
Ukraine yearns to be truly sovereign, win back its territories within its prewar borders, as well as to build up the military-industrial potential so that no one would even think of committing aggression against it.
To achieve this goal, one of the Ukraine’s high priorities should be the development of advanced technologies based on science. And Ukrainian academics, including Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, should play a key role in this process, thereby nearing victory.