Issue #2 (spec. issue) (Volume 23 2025)

The war in Ukraine has been ongoing for 10 years, reshaping the lives of people, communities, institutions, and worldviews. The occupation of Crimea and significant parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014 marked the first wave of shocks for Ukraine's higher education system. The massive relocation of universities from these regions signaled the beginning of a new reality. During this time, frontline regions actively demonstrated their dedication to Ukraine.
Universities transformed into volunteer hubs, collecting supplies, provisions, and protective equipment for the front. Students, faculty, and other staff became volunteers and joined the war effort.

The study examines the impact of institutional mental health support on the career stability of academic staff at Ukrainian universities during the full-scale war, focusing on accessibility, cultural alignment, and tailored mental health initiatives provided by universities. The relevance of this topic arises from the unprecedented stressors affecting academic members in higher education institutions, who face both personal and professional challenges. A cross-sectional analytical design was employed, using an online survey distributed among 429 academic staff members. The findings reveal that nearly half of the respondents frequently contemplate changing careers, highlighting substantial job instability. Accessible mental health support is associated with a 6% decrease in career change intentions, while a supportive institutional culture further reduces these intentions by 8-9%. Notably, self-help practices emerged as the most effective support mechanism, associated with a 12% reduction in career change intentions. These findings suggest that institutions can improve retention by prioritizing and promoting accessible self-help initiatives. The study underscores the importance of structured mental health support in fostering resilience within the academic community, with implications for policy and practice in war-affected educational environments.

Acknowledgment
The research teams acknowledge the Armed Forces of Ukraine for providing safety during their research and credit their perseverance and courage for making this possible. Natalia Tsybuliak is grateful to the Ukraine Research Network@ZOiS, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, for support in implementing the research.
This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine as part of the state-funded research project 0123U105351, “Ukrainian universities in new realities: the impact of war and mechanisms for preserving the scientific and human resource potential for training specialists in high-tech fields.”

Ukraine must search for efficient tools to accelerate the economic recovery in the post-war period. The workforce equipped with future skills is globally considered to be able to accelerate the pace of innovative growth and achieve the goals of Industry 4.0. This study aims to identify key skills of tomorrow and outline the ways in which these skills can be strengthened at Ukrainian universities. The skills of tomorrow that the Ukrainian standard for higher education recommends the universities include in the existing and new educational programs in various specialties were divided into five groups depending on their nature. Moreover, they were mapped following sustainable development goals to comprehensively assess their ability to promote each goal. Thus, the concept of a ‘future skill’ has been defined to contain aspects such as sustainability, skills, Industry 4.0, energy, education, energy efficiency, productivity, and creativity. The relationships between each future skill and its ability to facilitate sustainable development goals were described, and possible problematic areas were identified. Finally, the paper revealed that the skills able to boost the economy, which is specifically relevant for the post-war recovery of Ukraine, are not satisfactorily represented in Ukrainian higher education. Therefore, to make the Ukrainian higher education system a decisive factor in post-war recovery, it should shift the focus from solely hard skills to the skills of the future.

The study aims to assess the role of educational institutions in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) during wartime in Ukraine. The focus is on the education sector, namely, adapting educational strategies to contemporary challenges. The paper employs a content analysis of information published by ten leading pedagogical universities in Ukraine to assess their success in implementing sustainable development goals. Special attention is given to such sustainable development goals as quality education (SDG 4), gender equality (SDG 5), sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), peace and justice (SDG 16), and partnerships for the goals (SDG 17). University strategies and publication activity on addressing global sustainable development challenges in the Scopus database were analyzed. The research results demonstrate the variability of university development strategies, which determines their uneven focus on certain aspects of sustainable development. The results highlight the need to improve management strategies, integrate sustainable development principles into educational programs, and strengthen international partnerships. Finally, the study offers recommendations for further adaptation of educational institutions to changing conditions to ensure the sustainable development of Ukrainian society.