Project activities

The Incubating Freedom for Ukraine project goes towards the implementation phase

The IFU project, financed under the Erasmus+ program, has completed the preparatory phase and started the implementation phase.

It is worth recalling that his priority is to adapt European vocational education and training systems to support refugees – and in fact mainly refugee women - from war-torn Ukraine. In accordance with the assumptions of the so-called “The 3rd University Mission” to solve this topic was undertaken by universities from three countries: the University of Gdańsk, the Czech Tomas Bata University in Zlin and the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest. The project consortium also includes an academic partner from Ukraine - Kyiv Technical University Igor Sikorski (KPI), which brings added value to the project - knowledge of potential training participants and facilitates reaching a specific target group. The coordinator of the project – very highly rated by FRSE, the national operator of Erasmus+ – is the Perspektywy Educational Foundation.

The main goal of the project is to test in theory and practice the effectiveness of various methods of vocational education offered to refugees in order to increase their competitiveness on the labour market. The institutions involved in the project will not only become centres of reflection and practical know-how on this topic in their countries, but will also check how to optimally structure and conduct retraining training for adults in the IT&TECH industry. This is a resource with great potential, as each of the partner countries (like other European countries) faces a shortage of workers with these skills. The know-how created as part of the project can be used to meet the needs of other refugee groups, but also of migrants of both sexes from countries other than Ukraine.

After a series of preparatory meetings conducted online, a group representing all IFU partners has been gathered on the occasion of the Seventeenth annual conference “Study in Poland” in Poznań. Project coordinators from individual institutions discussed individual project tasks and planned in details events until the end of 2024. In addition to organize training courses, it is planned to organize in September this year a hybrid conference in Ukraine (dedicated to Ukrainian universities) in order to implement tested IT&Tech vocational courses as additional educational tasks of the university. All project partners announced their participation in this project.

The key conclusion from this meeting is the fact that the legal, cultural and social situation of Ukrainian refugees in individual countries is completely different. On the one hand, this causes huge problems in the universalization of solutions, but on the other hand, it gives the opportunity to test various action patterns that may prove useful when applying the Strategy – developed within the IFU – in relation to other EU countries.

The presence of outstanding specialists from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine in Poznań also allowed us to organize a dedicated panel discussion “Adapting Refugees to Digital Economy in Europe” on the first day of the Study in Poland 2024 conference. The conclusions from this panel concern both specific organizational issues, but also that there is an urgent need to coordinate various activities carried out in Poland and other countries supporting Ukraine, so that there are no parallel or even competing activities. The recording of the whole discussion can be found here.