This event, organised within the framework of the EUI Widening Europe Programme, will feature a keynote address by Prof. Tymofii Brik, Rector of the Kyiv School of Economics, on leading a university during wartime. The programme will also include presentations by two EUI scholars whose research engages with issues related to Ukraine.
Programme
15:30 – 15:50 Running an academic institution in time of war
Prof. Tymofii Brik, Rector of the Kyiv School of Economics
Drawing on his experience leading KSE since 2022, Tymofii will reflect on what it means to run a university during a full-scale war - sustaining teaching and research under blackouts and air raid alerts, supporting students and staff amid mobilization and displacement, and making strategic decisions, from campus relocation to new degree programmes, under conditions of radical uncertainty. The talk situates KSE's experience within broader questions facing Ukrainian academia today
Tymofii Brik is a Ukrainian sociologist, currently serving as the Rector at the Kyiv School of Economics. He is also the National Coordinator of the European Social Survey (2022-2026). In 2022-23, he was the Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International Studies in the Department of Sociology and the Roberta Buffett Institute, Northwestern University. In 2023, he was a non-residential visiting fellow at LSE. In 2019-20 he was a Fulbright researcher at the NYU sociology department. In 2018, he was a Vucinich Fellow at Stanford University. His paper, "When Church Competition Matters?" won the N. Panina award in 2018, presented by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine
He is also a board member of the International Renaissance Foundation projects in Social Capital, a jury member of the "Talents for Ukraine" grant program, an advisory board member at the Future Index by the Olena Zelenska Foundation, and an assembly member of the Virtual Ukraine Institute for Advanced Studies. From 2017 to 2023, he was a member of the supervisory board at CEDOS.
15:50 – 16:10 The Electoral Cost of Kremlin Ties: The Full-Scale Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Party Performance in Europe
Yurii Kondratyk, Researcher, Department of Political and Social Sciences
Did the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine punish parties with close ties to the Kremlin? This paper examines the electoral performance of 234 parties across 30 European countries in the two national elections before and after 24 February 2022. The design compares parties with different degrees of proximity to the Kremlin, measured with the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, and tests whether the effect is conditioned by the security threat posed by Russia. Preliminary results suggest that there is no uniform penalty for Kremlin proximity across Europe; instead, the electoral cost is concentrated in countries bordering Russia.
Yurii Kondratyk is a second-year PhD researcher in the Department of Political and Social Sciences, supervised by Prof. Filip Kostelka. His dissertation examines how the historical legacies of the Soviet Union and communism shape European public opinion on the Russo-Ukrainian war. His broader research interests include electoral behaviour, party competition and the political consequences of the war.
16:10 – 16:30 Marginalia on Wartime Editorship
Polina Baitsym, Max Weber Fellow, Department of History
This talk recounts the experience of collaborative work on the volume The Harvard History of Ukrainian Art, 1940s–1990. It maps the needs of authors and offers some notes on the editorial approach attuned to them. Taking this case as a starting point, the talk considers how editorial and publishing ethos can be reconfigured to sustain and develop scholarship in a war-affected society.
Polina Baitsym is an art historian and curator specializing in the history of Ukrainian Soviet visual arts. She holds PhD in Comparative History from Central European University, Budapest/Vienna, and serves as an editor for The Harvard History of Ukrainian Art, 1940s–1990 (forthcoming 2029). As a Max Weber Fellow at EUI, Baitsym works on her manuscript on Ukrainian Soviet art historiography.
16:30 – 17:00 Discussion
Chair: Prof. Herman van de Werfhorst, EUI
This activity is funded by the EUI Widening Europe Programme. The EUI Widening Europe Programme, backed by contributions from the European Union and EUI Contracting States, is designed to strengthen internationalisation, competitiveness, and quality in research in Widening countries, and thus foster a more cohesive European Higher Education and Research area.
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