Working Visit of Maryna Vasylieva to the United Kingdom within the British Council Project Supporting Women Leaders in Academia British Council
Deputy Director of the Education and Research Institute “Ukrainian Engineering Pedagogics Academy”, Professor Maryna Vasylieva, paid a working visit to the University of Bedfordshire (Luton, United Kingdom) as part of the project “From Career Roadmap to Career Boardmap: Building Institutional Support for Women Leaders in Academia in Ukraine”, implemented with the support of the British Council programme “Going Global Partnerships”.
The project consortium includes the University of Bedfordshire (Luton, United Kingdom), Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, and the NGO “Innovative Generation” (INNOGEN).
The working visit, which took place from April 8 to April 15, 2026, aimed at experience exchange, knowledge transfer, and capacity building of partner teams.
During the meetings, participants discussed current challenges in ensuring gender equality in higher education, mechanisms for supporting women’s professional development, and opportunities to strengthen international cooperation between universities.
One of the key outcomes of the visit was the joint development of a concept for a board game dedicated to institutional support for women leaders in higher education. The idea of the game involves modelling real career challenges, developing leadership competencies, strategic thinking, decision-making skills, and identifying effective support mechanisms for women at different stages of their professional development.
The project became a logical continuation of the previous work of the international team on a career development roadmap for women in higher education, designed to support professional growth, expand opportunities, and ensure equal conditions for career advancement.
As part of the visit, meetings were also held with representatives of gender centres at UK universities, where successful practices of institutional support for women leaders, mentoring models, academic leadership development programmes, and equal opportunities policies were presented. The experience gained will serve as an important resource for further implementation of similar initiatives in Ukrainian higher education institutions.
Particular attention was paid to presenting the results of the study on the impact of the developed training materials on focus group participants. The presented outcomes received positive feedback from international partners and became the basis for the next stages of the project implementation.
The participation of representatives of Karazin University in international initiatives contributes to strengthening partnerships, integration into the European educational space, and the implementation of modern approaches to building an inclusive, equitable, and innovative academic environment.
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