Czech universities have been supporting the development of Ukrainian studies, raising awareness of Ukrainian culture, language, and history, and the mutual exchange of experts and students. Cooperation in these areas with the Foundation of the President of Ukraine for Support of Education, Science and Sports has been formalised during a meeting between the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, the Czech Minister of Education, Mikuláš Bek, and the representatives of four Czech universities, including Palacký University.
UP Rector Michael Kohajda signed a Letter of Intent at the meeting. This document expresses the university’s commitment to initiate negotiations with the Foundation of the President of Ukraine on closer cooperation in education and research with the aim of signing a Memorandum of Understanding, which will form the basis for such cooperation in the future within the framework of the Global Coalition of Ukrainian Studies.
This coalition brings together Ukrainian studies centres around the world. Its activities aim to support their development, including Crimean Tatar studies, and to popularise Ukrainian culture, language, and history abroad; among other things as a counterweight to the disinformation spread by Russian propaganda.
Masaryk University has also signed such a Letter of Intent; meanwhile, representatives of Charles University and the University of Hradec Králové have signed Memorandums of Cooperation with the Foundation of the President of Ukraine, thus becoming members of the coalition.
There are currently 268 Ukrainian students studying at Palacký University Olomouc, with most of them at the Faculties of Arts and Science. Their number has doubled in the last three years. “Many students and academics from Ukraine are already part of our university community today, and their interest in UP is growing, for which we are happy indeed. It was a true honour and a pleasure to meet Olena Zelenska, the First Lady of that war-torn country. I am proud that we are among those universities who have been helping Ukraine from the very beginning. In the future, we also want to cooperate towards the development of Ukrainian studies, and the main partner of UP in this respect will be our Faculty of Arts and its Department of Slavonic Studies,” said UP Rector Kohajda.
The meeting with the First Lady of Ukraine was also attended by the UP Faculty of Arts Dean, Jan Stejskal, and Uljana Cholodová from the Ukrainian Studies Section at the UP Faculty of Arts Department of Slavonic Studies.
