The University of Notre Dame and Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) are launching three collaborative grants that expand the existing academic, religious and cultural partnerships between the two universities. The collaborative projects include the ND-UCU Faculty Collaboration Grant Program, the ND-UCU Curriculum/Course Development Grants and the ND-UCU Library Guest Scholars Program.

“These collaborative grants will provide faculty members the opportunity to pursue research that will have tremendous influence in a variety of scholarly disciplines and for Ukraine in the months and years to come,” said Michael Pippenger, Notre Dame’s vice president and associate provost for internationalization.

“Being able to support Notre Dame and UCU faculty to pursue academic inquiry without pause and empower formative research during a time of war exemplifies what it means to be in solidarity together for the common good.”

In addition to faculty research grants, the other grant programs invite UCU faculty to access the online library collection at Notre Dame or offer faculty the chance to develop a new course or revise a specific curriculum at UCU.

Volodymyr Turchynovskyy, dean and faculty of social sciences at Ukrainian Catholic University, said Ukraine has become a laboratory for social transformation of global importance and impact.

“Recently launched ‘Standing in Solidarity Partnership’ is a very courageous and visionary move made by Notre Dame and Ukrainian Catholic University at the time of Ukraine’s resistance against Russian full-scale invasion,” he said. “Such academic bravery is foremost a sign of profoundly lived solidarity and friendship between our two universities.”

Turchynovskyy said the continued partnership allows both universities to establish a channel through expertise and research, vitality and motivation, innovations and teaching, and richness of Christian tradition and practice.

“One of the critical questions we ask ourselves these days is this: How to convert the power of solidarity and sacrifice — so abundantly revealed under present circumstances — into sustainable principles and models of the future recovery and development of Ukraine? I’m very honored and grateful in acknowledging that the University of Notre Dame is an excellent partner in coping with this question and also in putting it on the global academia agenda,” he said.

Applications for all three grant programs are now open. Learn more about the three new grants here.

The partnership expansion between Notre Dame and UCU, which was announced in May, includes five primary components modeled on similar partnerships Notre Dame has with other colleges and universities worldwide to support international education and research.

Learn more about Notre Dame’s initiatives in Ukraine.

Originally published by Colleen Wilcox at news.nd.edu on September 29, 2022.