Karazin University Professor Maryna Vasylieva Begins Training in the International THEA Ukraine Lead University Leadership Programme

Karazin University Professor Maryna Vasylieva has successfully passed the competitive selection process and joined the second cohort of the international THEA Ukraine Lead programme (Trainings for Higher Education Administrators and Leaders in Ukraine), which aims to develop management competencies, university leadership, and the implementation of institutional change at Ukrainian higher education institutions.

Maryna Vasylieva is Deputy Director of the Ukrainian Engineering Pedagogics Academy Education and Research Institute, Professor at the Department of Innovative Pedagogy, Educational Transformations and Leadership at the Academy of Teaching Education and Research Institute, and Head of the UNESCO-UNEVOC Centre at Karazin University.

The programme is implemented by Münster University of Applied Sciences (FH Münster, Germany) and Sumy State University, with support from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and funding from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR).

The second cohort of THEA Ukraine Lead comprises 15 representatives of Ukrainian universities who will work on their own institutional change projects throughout the programme, supported by international experts and mentors.

The programme began with a three-day online workshop during which participants explored strategic university management, leadership, change management, team development, and institutional resilience in the face of contemporary challenges. Particular attention was paid to practical case studies, European experience in university management, and the development of individual institutional development initiatives.

An important component of THEA Ukraine Lead is individual mentoring, which helps participants translate the knowledge they acquire into concrete management decisions. Maryna Vasylieva is mentored by Konstantyn Kyrychenko, Vice President for International Cooperation at Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), Associate Professor, and an expert in international cooperation and strategic university development. He has over 20 years of experience in university internationalisation, including many years of managing international activities at Sumy State University.

As part of the programme, Maryna Vasylieva will implement the institutional change project “From International Project Results to University Practice: Institutionalising Educational Outcomes for the Professional Development of Karazin University Staff” (From Project Results to University Practice).

The initiative aims to develop and pilot a university-wide Project-to-Practice mechanism that will enable the systematic use of outcomes from international educational projects — including learning modules, massive open online courses, methodologies, assessment tools, and other educational resources — for the professional development of academic and administrative staff.

The proposed approach involves identifying the current needs of the university community, selecting promising educational resources, adapting them to internal needs, piloting them in practice, and evaluating their effectiveness. In the long term, this will make it possible to integrate the most successful outcomes of international project activities into sustainable professional development practices for University staff.

The first practical step will be piloting the training programme “Global Competence@Karazin: Teaching and Working in an International University”, designed to develop global and intercultural competencies, improve international communication, and introduce internationalisation tools into teaching and administrative activities.

The pilot programme is planned to draw on the experience and educational materials of the international Erasmus+ UA-TALENT-UP project. It is expected to involve 25–30 academic and administrative staff members from various structural units of Karazin University. Representatives of the International Relations Office, Iryna Shteimiller and Roman Nesterenko, will contribute to the initiative as internal trainers.

The project is expected to deliver not only a pilot training programme but also a mechanism for using the educational outcomes of international projects that can subsequently support the development of teaching and management excellence, the internationalisation of education, and the enhancement of the University’s institutional capacity.

The next stages of THEA Ukraine Lead will include thematic online sessions, individual mentoring, and an in-person training workshop to be held on 25–28 January 2027 at Münster University of Applied Sciences in Germany. Work on institutional change projects will continue throughout the programme.

Maryna Vasylieva’s participation in THEA Ukraine Lead will contribute to the development of international academic cooperation, the exchange of European management practices, and the strengthening of Karazin University’s capacity for strategic development and change management.

The initiative is particularly significant because it seeks to establish conditions in which the outcomes of international projects become a long-term resource for university development, ensuring the sustainability of international cooperation and delivering practical benefits to the entire academic community.

For more information about the programme, visit the official FH Münster website.