New project just started! UNICOM: Universities-Communities: strengthening cooperation

Are you interested in promoting innovation and social development in Ukraine? That is what our new project UNICOM is aiming on. It aims to enhance university-community cooperation in Ukraine using experiences from various countries.

UNICOM incorporates best practices from EU states such as Italy, Germany, Sweden, Latvia and Czech Republic, and seeks to develop national models of university-community cooperation centers, known as UNICOMs. These centers will apply university expertise to community needs and encourage student civic engagement through hackathons and volunteering programs.

But UNICOM isn't just about fostering university-community engagement. It also aims to boost social cohesion, resilience, and sustainability in Ukraine. The project's activities include developing policies to enhance the third mission of universities, analyzing the needs of communities and universities across Ukraine, and capacity-building for university staff.

By promoting the third mission of universities and strengthening university-community cooperation, UNICOM has the potential to create a positive impact on Ukrainian society and contribute to the country's economic and social development. So join the conversation on how we can support this vital mission, and learn more about UNICOM's exciting efforts to promote innovation and social development in Ukraine.

In the week of 11.-15.4.2023 the UNICOM kick off meeting took place in Italy at the place of coordinating university – University of Genoa. The University of Genoa is one of the largest universities in Italy and it is located in the city of Genoa and regional Metropolitan City of Genoa, on the Italian Riviera in the Liguria region of northwestern Italy. The original university was founded already in 1481. During this week two main events happened:

• Coordination kick off meeting

• International conference

During this kick off meeting, the program was quite full. Apart from knowledge sharing by all the partners, also all the steps to be done were discussed. As this is quite complex and structural project (consisted of 22 partners), which needs to result in structural changes, Ministry of Education of Ukraine as one of the partners plays a key role as a partner of this project.

All the core boards and committees were created and road map for the successfully fulfilling the project was established.

Read more about the project HERE.