In the next two years Ukraine is going to preside over the Black Sea University Network (BSUN), an organization that is mapping a strategy of sustained development for the countries of the Black Sea region. This means that Ukraine is assuming full responsibility for drawing up this kind of strategy. At issue here are various questions, like improving living standards, implementing cutting-edge technologies, strengthening energy security, searching for alternative energy sources, and establishing cooperation between universities in various countries.
Ukrainian academics thus have every chance to occupy leading positions in developing nanotechnologies, modern materials, telemedicine, etc. These were the issues that the representatives of the BSUN Congress discussed at the Forum on Higher Education hosted by the Kyiv National Polytechnic Institute (KPI) on April 3- 5. Taking part in the forum were more than 100 educational institutions from 11 Black Sea region countries, including Albania, Greece, Turkey, and Moldova.
“The commonwealth of universities in the Black Sea region is an additional opportunity for Ukraine to integrate into the world’s research and education space,” said the rector of KPI Mykhailo Zhurovsky. “The presidency of such a high-profile organization will help us establish close contacts with universities and colleges in the Black Sea region and Europe as a whole. Sustained development is a pressing issue for all the forum participants. It is a question of not only one- sided development of a state, such as gross domestic product increases, but also the improvement of economic, environmental, social, political, and other indices. Only countries that take an integrated approach to these problems can succeed.”
The Ukrainian participants of the forum hope that their foreign counterparts will support the Kyiv Declaration on the role of Black Sea region universities in shaping a sustained development policy. Serhii Sydorenko, the institute’s pro-rector for international relations, is convinced that this declaration offers a new look at the development of a common information space and innovative environment. It is not just about implementing university research findings in industry, but also about creating new research fields, such as the economics of knowledge. This means that competition should be boosted not only in industry but also in the intellectual sphere. Experts are convinced that economics of knowledge already exists in many countries, particularly in the ones that joined the Bologna Process in 2001.
The Bologna Process requires every country to conduct a debate on the development of its education. According to Svetomira Apostolova-Kaloyanova, Bulgaria’s Secretary of State for Education, this system offers teaching methods without which the much-coveted new information society cannot exist. Therefore, now is the time to launch a dialogue on the labor market between universities and business: educational institutions should increase the prestige of their diplomas, and entrepreneurs should be more open to young specialists.
