UCU International Office

A Letter to 2126: What Will You Leave Behind?

What if your students had to write a message not for today's audience — but for someone their own age, living 100 years from now?

That's the question Prof. Marta Demchyshyn (UCU) posed to spark "Voices of 2026: Chronicles of the Now" — a BRIDGE Project COIL module built with Prof. Juliana Diaz of the Catholic University of Manizales, Colombia. Over four weeks, 13 first-year UCU Liberal Arts students joined Colombian peers to build a digital time capsule, exploring heritage, digital art, and identity not through research, but through their own personal stories.

Across a 15,000-kilometer divide, time zones, and language gaps, something unexpected happened. "We never thought we could be so similar," students told Demchyshyn after the final presentations — discovering, as she puts it, a mirror across the ocean.

For students living through the realities of wartime Ukraine, the project became something more than coursework: a chance to become authors of their own narrative, not just its subjects.

📖 Read the full story: https://global.ucu.edu.ua/novyny/bridge-project-mapping-the-voices-of-2026-between-ucu-and-colombia/

As part of the BRIDGE Project, UCU's Dr. Taras Leshkovych teamed up with Prof. Álvaro Paúl (Pontifical Catholic University of Chile) to build a COIL module within UCU's International Law Advanced seminar. Prof. Paúl laid out the universal framework on state responsibility and the prohibition of the use of force — and Dr. Leshkovych followed with Ukraine's own legal battle: the Register of Damage, frozen Russian assets, and the path toward accountability for aggression.

Nine mixed groups of Ukrainian and Chilean students drafted legal memoranda and presented oral arguments together — navigating language switches, Microsoft Teams glitches, and two very different academic calendars along the way.

But for Dr. Leshkovych, the real value goes beyond the classroom: "It's important to present ourselves, to speak about ourselves... so that the world knows about us from us, not from somebody else."

Read the full story: https://global.ucu.edu.ua/novyny/bridge-project-how-ucu-and-chile-navigated-international-law-and-global-realities/

What happens when students in Lviv and Lima watch the same film — and find in it a shared language of dignity, justice, and hope?

This spring, as part of the BRIDGE Project, UCU's Ass. Prof. Svitlana Hurkina and Prof. Carlos Piccone Camere (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru) brought together 38 Ukrainian and 30 Peruvian students for a COIL course exploring Christianity and Catholic Social Doctrine through cinema.

Across time zones, students didn't just discuss films — they shared their own stories. Peruvian students spoke about Ukraine; Ukrainian students spoke about Peru. Friendships formed.

"We are like cultural diplomats," Ass. Prof. Hurkina tells her students — and this course proved exactly that.

📖 Read the full story: https://global.ucu.edu.ua/novyny/4634/

Call for Applications: German-Ukrainian Summer School in Wrocław!

The University of Jena, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukrainian Catholic University, and the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy invite students and early-stage doctoral researchers to apply for an interdisciplinary Summer School taking place in Wrocław, Poland, from 19–25 July 2026.

Theme: "Political and Cultural Resilience – Concepts and Practice"

Participants will explore resilience from historical, cultural, political, and socio-economic perspectives — examining experiences of displacement and exile, cultural memory, forms of dissent under socialism, digital heritage initiatives, Ukraine's financial resilience in times of war, and the evolving relationship between Ukraine and the EU.

Who can apply:
Bachelor's, master's, and early-stage doctoral students from the following disciplines: Literature and Cultural Studies, International Relations, European Studies, Economics, History, and Digital Humanities. Students from neighbouring disciplines with a strong interest in the topic are also encouraged to apply.

Eligibility:
✔️ enrolment at one of the participating universities

✔️ academic interest in the topic of resilience

✔️ desire to engage in interdisciplinary and international exchange

✔️ good command of English

Required documents:
📄 a short CV

📄 a motivation letter (max. 1 page)

📄 current transcript of records or proof of enrolment

Deadline: 28 June 2026 (midnight, Sunday). Submit all documents as a single PDF to [email protected]
💶 No participation fee: accommodation, meals, and travel expenses are covered, thanks to funding from the DAAD/German-Ukrainian University Networks programme.

Join us for the BRIDGE Online Forum — June 30!

Ukrainian Catholic University invites you to a free online forum bringing together universities from Ukraine, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru.

The BRIDGE Project has connected Ukrainian and Latin American students in shared online courses — learning together across time zones, languages, and cultures. On June 30, we come together to reflect on that journey and look ahead to 2027.

What's on the programme:
🎞 Faculty showcase the COIL courses built across two continents.
🗣️ Students from Ukraine and Latin America share what they learned — and how it changed them.
🏢 University leaders discuss how to turn a project into a lasting programme.

Everyone is welcome — faculty, students, administrators, and anyone curious about the future of international education.

⏰ June 30 | Ukraine: 16:00–20:00
📌 Participation is free. Registration required by June 26.
🔗 Sign up here: https://forms.gle/vm4xGH3ABJsoJwPz7

🙌🏻Call for Applications:
Viadrinicum 2026 Summer School Applications are now open for the transsectoral summer school Viadrinicum 2026: “Practicing Urban Junctures: Cooperative City and Its Social Bearings” at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany 🇩🇪

Viadrinicum is an annual summer school at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), devoted to the countries of the Eastern Partnership and the larger context of Central and Eastern Europe. Building on the discussions around the notion of learning city during the previous editions, in 2026 the school will focus on the modes of cooperative action that (pro)claim the city as a common good.

It invites students, young researchers, civil society activists, artists and cultural workers to critically interrogate the political-economic foundations of the city as a contested entity in-the-making, shaped by regimes of urban planning and governance, property relations and dwelling practices. Invoking the concept of urban junctions, the school aims to look into practices of collective (self-)organisation and bottom-up institutional design, which enable more equitable futures.

📅 16–30 August 2026
📍 Frankfurt (Oder) – Słubice
🗓 Application deadline: 7 June 2026

Who can apply?
• students
• PhD candidates
• NGO activists
• artists & cultural workers (up to 35 years old)

💡 Travel scholarships are available, and accommodation is fully covered by the organisers.

🖇️Apply here: https://form.typeform.com/to/NCyyPEji
More info: https://viadrinicum.blog/

Applications are open for the Summer Online Ecumenical School for Dialogue 2026: “Overcoming Harmful Polarization and Building Active Solidarity: Towards a Better Future” (July 1–9, 2026).

Bringing together international scholars, practitioners, clergy, educators, and civil society leaders, the School will explore the roots of polarization and practical ways to foster dialogue, solidarity, and reconciliation in deeply divided societies.

Participants will engage with interdisciplinary topics including religion, politics, media, artificial intelligence, history, and psychology.

🗓 July 1–9, 2026
🌍 Online
🎓 3 ECTS Credits
🗣 Working language: English

Registration form and more information are available on the website of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies at UCU.
https://ies.ucu.edu.ua/schooling/summer-schools/online-ecumenical-school-for-%20dialogue-2026/

Call for Applications for Free Online Courses for Administrative Staff

Dear Colleagues!

The University of Jena (Germany), as part of the DUHN programme and with support from the DAAD, is offering 10 scholarships for free online courses for administrative staff in the following areas:

• Data Literacy (digital literacy and data handling)
• Phishing / Cyber Security

The courses will be conducted individually on the Glocal Campus platform from late June to late August 2026.

Upon completion of the training, participants will receive certificates from the DUHN programme at the University of Jena.

To participate in the programme, please send your CV in English to the International Office ([email protected]) by June 1, 2026.

The European Academic Foundation (EAF) is a pan-European fellowship for outstanding university students across all disciplines. EAF offers 1-on-1 mentoring by leading professors and a close network of exceptional peers from across Europe.

The next academy is 22-30 August 2026 in a historic villa in Turin🇮🇹, with seminars from fields including Biology, History, and Computer Science.

🙋🏻‍♀️Who can apply?
All UCU students can apply — all years of study, all majors

💶Fully funded. Academic retreats are covered, including travel to and from them. Limited additional financial aid may be available in some cases.

‼️ Application deadline: May 31, 2026 (late applications accepted on request)

Apply or learn more at eaf.eu

UCU Staff Week 2026 | Wroclaw
Last week, Ukrainian Catholic University wrapped up its second Staff Week — "Mission-Driven Internationalization: Building Responsible Global Engagement" — hosted by the UCU Foundation in Poland in Wroclaw.
For five days, colleagues from the Netherlands, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Georgia, and beyond gathered not just to exchange best practices, but to ask harder questions: What does it mean to be a responsible university in today's world?
We were proud to welcome partners from our European University Alliances — Unite!, HEROES, and KreativEU — alongside long-standing friends from Tilburg University, Palacký University Olomouc, and colleagues from DAAD-supported projects. Together, we talked about ethics in research, equity in mobility, internationalization at home, and the responsibility universities carry as social actors.
As Dr. Michelle Greene from Fontys University of Applied Sciences put it: "I've been very impressed by the approach and creativity taken to internationalization in difficult times. It has certainly opened my mind — and it's been highly inspiring."

Read the full story here: https://global.ucu.edu.ua/novyny/mission-driven-internationalization-ucu-staff-week-in-wroclaw-2026/

UCU continues to build bridges — from Wroclaw, from Lviv, and from everywhere its community reaches. 💙💛