Professor Maryna Vasylieva, a representative of the Education Research Institute “Ukrainian Engineering Pedagogics Academy”, and Roman Nesterenko, Deputy Head of the International Relations Department of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, took an active part in the implementation of one of the stages of the project “Roadmap for the Career Development of Women Leaders in Higher Education in Ukraine”. The project received financial support from the British Council's Going Global Partnerships programme of gender equality projects based on the results of the 2024 selection.
The project is being implemented by the University of Bedfordshire (Luton, UK), Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics, the Ukrainian Engineering Pedagogics Academy of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, and the Innovation Generation NGO.
At this stage, 7 focus groups were held in Kharkiv, Lviv, Kyiv and among the community of Ukrainian educators in Europe. The focus groups used a game-based facilitation methodology to stimulate creative thinking and solve a wide range of problems. Using colourful construction sets, participants built their own models, reflected on and explored the main obstacles, opportunities and prospects for women's career development at universities.
The results of the focus group will be processed and used to create a roadmap for the career development of women in higher education. All the participants, who represented different higher education institutions from different cities of Ukraine, were active, creative and highly motivated. The British Council Ukraine team took part in the focus groups in Kyiv and shared their positive impressions of the organised work with the participants.
The LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology used by the facilitators Maryna Vasylieva and Roman Nesterenko was specially adapted for the focus groups by the Head of the Department of Strategic Management and Governance, Professor Alexander Kofinas, and the Director of the Centre for Leadership Innovation, Dr Christina Schwabenland, at the University of Bedfordshire Business School (Luton, UK).
All the materials received were digitally and linguistically processed and sent to our British colleagues.
We are looking forward to seeing the results of the project from the British participants!
