The impact of the forced displacement of universities due to the occupation of certain territories of Ukraine on the effectiveness of their activities: “Top 200 Ukraine” universities ranking

In the conditions of the war of russia against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, Ukrainian universities are playing roles that were not characteristic of them in peacetime. To the greatest extent, this concerns the university’s third mission, serving society and responding to its urgent needs. The purpose of this study is to identify and characterize new meaningful directions for implementing the third mission of the university in the conditions of war and post-war reconstruction. The study uses quantitative and qualitative bibliometric analysis combining various methods, in particular, quantitative and dynamic analysis of publications and citations, keyword analysis, cluster analysis and content analysis of publications.
The study’s results proved the lack of conceptual studies devoted to the role of universities in the war and post-war reconstruction. The main clusters of implementing the third mission of universities and the existing and potential areas of activity of Ukraine’s universities during the war and post-war reconstruction that belong to them were determined. In conclusion, it is substantiated that a new dimension of the mission of universities is being formed, which is at the stage of its formation and needs time for the necessary transformations. Depending on the consequences of the war in Ukraine, it can be a separate cluster of the third mission of universities, and the selection of a new fourth mission of universities, dedicated to peacebuilding and the role of the university during the war and post-war recovery.

Acknowledgment
Yuriy Petrushenko gratefully acknowledges support from the Kirkland Research Program. The research
was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (No. 0121U109553).

This study examines young people’s perspectives on local government bodies’ and universities’ roles in revitalizing de-occupied territories. A mixed-methods approach was deployed to examine their roles in returning and retaining young people in these areas. An initial quantitative survey was conducted among 1,180 young individuals from Berdyansk and its district (a temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine), focusing on the prospects of their return after de-occupation. A subsequent “Youth of Berdyansk” forum assembled roughly 300 participants, including university and local government representatives, to further explore youth perceptions. Findings revealed that 52.8% of respondents envision their future in the de-occupied region. Local government bodies and universities were seen as crucial for the region’s development and restoration by 92% and 86% of respondents, respectively. Moreover, 69% recognized the potential of partnerships between these institutions to enhance the territories’ appeal. Most respondents indicated readiness to participate in creating recovery strategies (41% absolute readiness, 38% with certain guarantees), though views on youth-centric strategies were mixed (80% agreement, 13% disagreement). The study concludes that local government bodies and universities are critical in the territories’ recovery and development, necessitating explicit engagement and focusing on young people’s needs for effective outcomes.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a universal call to action over the past few years and a basis for assessing the progress of sustainable development of countries and organizations. This paper aims to identify the relationship between the sustainable development activities of universities in different regions of the world, as reflected in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (THE IR), and the progress towards achieving SDGs of the countries in which these universities operate. The research methods were correlation analysis and robust regression tools, and parametric and non-parametric methods of variance analysis. The information base was the results of annual reports based on the THE IR and Sustainable Development Reports for 2017–2021. The results confirm the existence of directly proportional close correlations between the variables, while the regression analysis confirmed that a one-unit increase in the overall THE IR ranking score leads to a corresponding increase in the overall progress of countries in achieving SDGs (on average by 0.2-0.3 units) and SDGs 3, 8, 11, 16 in particular. It was also found that universities play a key role in achieving different SDGs in various regions. In Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and North Africa, universities are critical for SDG 17 achieving. In OECD countries, universities contribute most to SDG 3. Examples of the best practices that can be used as a guide for university administrations that are at the beginning of developing sustainable development policies are also given.

Funding
Inna Makarenko gratefully acknowledges support from the Jean Monet module project “Transparency. Accountability. Responsibility. Governance. Europe. Trust. Sustainability” financed by the Erasmus+ program (101085395 – TARGETS – ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH).