Logistical Challenge of the Year

A great example of a logistical challenge, the event was prompted by a request received from President Zelensky’s office asking if UK universities had any relevant opportunities for him to thank them for being involved in a twinning initiative University UK International had helped set up, after seeing the devastation inflicted on universities by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Universities UK International (UUKI) developed a twinning programme between UK Ukrainian institutions, to provide vital support and funding to the UK Ukrainian Universities. The virtual event through Zoom was based on President Zelensky thanking the UK universities for the support they were providing, to gain more funding and awareness, the challenges they faced to name a few were, a 10 day time scale with a team of 3 people, obtain funding of £190,000 to support the twinning and sign 25 new twinning partnerships.

The team smashed their targets, despite the president having to pull out after an attack on Ukraine, the president’s office provided a replacement, the Ukraine’s Minister of Education and Science, he said: “More than 2,000 education institutions have been damaged and more than 280 destroyed. We’re grateful for the brilliant [twinning] initiative and for UK universities who offered a helping hand to Ukrainians through this difficult time.” Officials from Research England, a UK government agency, were in attendance and they developed conversations afterward that led to £5m of funding, and 100 Universities agreeing to help their Ukrainian colleagues, this is having a profound impact on the Ukrainian higher education community, from rebuilding campuses destroyed in the war, through to the sharing of resources to enable teaching and research activities to continue #TwinForHope