UNICITIES JOINS

... to transform the EU into an equitable and prosperous society, with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy

KICK-OFF MEETING

The kick-off meeting helps to establish the entire project coordination and management framework

WE ARE WORKING

In order to spread the ideas of the European Green Deal, decarbonisation, and climate neutrality

Workshop "Coevolution of the "Business-University": New Realities - New Practices"

On September 15, 2023, the International Scientific and Technical University named after academician Yury Bugai in Kyiv hosted the workshop “Business-University Coevolution: New Realities – New Practices” dedicated to important aspects of modern higher education and partnership between universities and business.

Who we are

Project name: Unlocking the Transformative potential of Ukrainian Universities towards climate neutral and sustainable cities. Project acronym: UNICITIES.
The overarching goal – is to unlock the transformative potential of Ukrainian universities as catalysts and accelerators of systemic change in cities towards sustainability, resilience and climate neutrality through interdisciplinary, challenge-oriented and collaborative education, research and innovation.

UniCities ensures three transformational pillars:

1.Educational innovation, with new interdisciplinary and challenge-oriented learning activities that will foster a culture of collaboration among the partner universities; 2. Structural innovation, where university-city collaboration centers will be established in four Ukrainian universities as innovation brokers for multi-stakeholder ecosystems that will enhance systemic innovation, distributed learning and leadership;
3. A joint portfolio of multi-stakeholder partnerships between Ukrainian universities and civil society partners of the project to create impact focused on mitigating the effects of climate change and adapting society to them.

Background and policy context: The project’s history is rooted in the European Commission’s commitment to lead the fight against climate change and has established the European Green Deal and other EU policies and directives to achieve this commitment. The plan provides for a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030 and the achievement of climate neutrality by 2050.

“… to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society, with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use”.
European Commission, 2019, p.2.

In general, the UNICITIES project aims to implement 6 main work packages:
Work package 1
Project management and quality assurance
Main objectives
1. Develop and facilitate a framework for systematic coordination and continuous improvement of university-city collaboration at four Ukrainian Universities
2. Establish university-city collaboration centers.
3. Plan for a transformative portfolio of research, innovation and education activities aimed at climate and sustainability transition in cities in collaboration between faculty, students and professionals.
4. Carrying out regular coordination meetings to monitor progress of the activities and compliance with the indicators. Regular coordination meetings will be organized during the project with, approximately, 6-months interval.
5. Providing necessary support to the WP leaders in implementation of the tasks.
Work package 2
Capacity building
Main objectives
Improve capacity of UniCities partners in systems innovation.
Provide insights and support shared learning from success, failures and obstacles of university-city collaborations in Ukraine, Spain and Sweden.
Study visit to Viable Cities at KTH (1-week study visit to Viable Cities/ KTH (Sweden) will be organised for faculty and practitioners from the consortium).
Study visit to itd UPM (1-week study visit to itdUPM / KTH (Spain) will be organised for faculty and practitioners from the consortium).
4 Online training session on systems innovation (2-day on-line training session will be developed by KTH and UPM targeting Ukrainian academic and societal partners).
Sense-making workshop (1-day on-line sense-making workshop is to reflect on learnings, how these lessons learnt could be used during the project and beyond.

Members

Kungliga Tekniska hoegskolan

Kungliga Tekniska hoegskolan (KTH, Sweden) – is a leading engineering university in Sweden providing national economy with professionals in broad spectrum of engineering disciplines. KTH is working with industry and society in the pursuit of sustainable solutions to some of humanity’s greatest challenges: climate change, future energy supply, urbanisation and quality of life for the rapidly-growing elderly population. KTH is the host organization for Swedish Strategic Innovation programme Viable Cities, the catalyst for new forms of cooperation between cities, industry, academia, research institutes and civil society.

Universidad Politecnica de Madrid

Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM, Spain) – a top-quality academic establishment, that has a strong commitment to R&D and innovation, boasting 200 research groups and 17 research centres and institutes, contributing significantly to the international scientific community with a high number of journal papers, conference communications, and PhD theses.

National Technical University of Ukraine Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute

National Technical University of Ukraine Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (NTUU KPI, Ukraine) – is a leading engineering university in Ukraine providing education and carrying research activities in a wide range of engineering domains. The University carries out extensive cooperation activities with the urban stakeholders with the focus on energy efficiency and sustainable development of urban areas.

Chernihiv National University of Technology

Chernihiv National University of Technology (CNUT, Ukraine) – is the main center of technical education and research in the north of Ukraine. It is included in the list of priority higher educational establishments by Canadian Association of Engineers.

Higher education institution “Academician Yuriy Bugay International Scientific and Technical University”

Higher education institution “Academician Yuriy Bugay International Scientific and Technical University” (ISTU, Ukraine) – is a modern university in science and technology, nationally and globally recognized for the quality of education, high scientific and professional level of pedagogical potential. The mission of the University is to provide quality higher education to promote sustainable development of society by preparing competitive human capital and creating conditions for lifelong learning.

Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University

Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University (NLU, Ukraine) – is one of the leading universities in Ukraine that provides modern education in the area of law. NLU cooperates with Kharkiv city authorities in educational, research, innovation and many other fields. Kharkiv city and regional councils, their executive bodies, state bodies of the regions of Ukraine are among the stakeholders.