The creation of the Ukrainian Educational Research Association (UERA) began with the idea of four volunteer scholars to integrate the Ukrainian academic community of education researchers and to obtain membership in the European Educational Research Association (EERA, http://www.eera-ecer.de/), which was founded in 1994 and today unites more than 30 national and regional associations.
The implementation of this idea started in June 2015 with the submission of an application and the required package of documents to the EERA Council (http://www.eera-ecer.de/about/council/). In September, another five people joined the team. The negotiation process with EERA leadership continued at a personal meeting with EERA President Theo Wubbels and EERA Secretary General Marit Honerod Hoveid in September 2015 in Budapest (Hungary) during the annual EERA-ECER conference (http://www.eera-ecer.de/ecer-2015-budapest/).
On 12 September 2015, the EERA Council, at its regular meeting, adopted a positive decision on the Ukrainian application and granted associate membership in EERA to the Ivan Franko Drohobych State Pedagogical University.
The next step was the founding of the Ukrainian Educational Research Association at the Ivan Franko Drohobych State Pedagogical University and the start of building this organization at the national level.
On 1 December 2015, the Founding Assembly of UERA took place, at which the decision to establish the organization was made. On 14 December 2015, UERA was officially registered as a voluntary non-profit public organization and acquired the status of a legal entity.
In June 2015, the team of UERA initiators consisted of: Svitlana Shchudlo (Drohobych), Olena Fimyar (Cambridge), Iryna Kosulia (Kharkiv), Iryna Kushnir (Edinburgh).
In September 2015, the team was joined by: Nadiia Skotna (Drohobych), Olena Kovalchuk (Lutsk), Mariia Vitrukh (Lviv), Oksana Zabolotna (Uman), Tetiana Lisova (Nizhyn).
On 18 March 2017, at the meeting of the EERA Council held at Humboldt University (Berlin, Germany), the issue of Ukraine was considered. The leaders of the national associations of 30 countries unanimously decided to grant UERA full membership in EERA. The decision was made on the basis of a public presentation to EERA members of UERA’s activities by its leaders Svitlana Shchudlo and Oksana Zabolotna, as well as the review of previously submitted documents, which reflected UERA’s structure, areas of activity, events held, statute, website, membership, development prospects, and more.
On 27 September 2022, after a severe incurable illness, UERA founder and president Prof. Svitlana Shchudlo passed away. Nevertheless, the organization continued to function and support its members during the war.
The second UERA president became Prof. Oksana Zabolotna. Over the course of its existence, UERA has united around 500 members representing academic and educational centers from all regions of Ukraine. With their direct involvement and initiative, dozens of projects aimed at the development of Ukrainian education have been implemented. We invite you to visit the organization’s website to learn more about its activities.
UERA builds its work on the following principles:
- democratic governance;
- research ethics;
- peer reviewing;
- evidence-based pedagogy;
- cooperation;
- capacity building;
- interdisciplinarity.
Team of pre-UERA before the official registration
Svitlana Shchudlo – Acting UERA President
Svitlana Shchudlo is a Doctor of Sociology, Professor, Chair of Law, Sociology and Political Science Department, Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University (Ukraine). She is a board member of Sociological Association of Ukraine (SAU), Academician of Higer School Academy of Science of Ukraine. Svitlana’s research interests include education reform, education quality monitoring in secondary and higher education. Her PhD thesis ‘Quality of higher pedagogical education: factors and mechanisms of providing it in the conditions of modern society’ analysed the reforms of teacher education. She is an editor-in-chief of the international peer-reviewed journal ‘Youth in Central and Eastern Europe. Sociological Studies: Youth policy: problems and prospects’ http://www.youthjournal.eu. The link to the university profile: http://kpspddpu.ucoz.ua/index/shhudlo_s_a/0-22
Olena Fimyar – Acting UERA Outreach Officer, contact person for EERA (2015-2016)
In her current position Olena Fimyar is a Senior Research Associate at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK working on the issues of education reform, organisational learning, teacher identity and student transition from school to higher education in Kazakhstan https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/fimyar/. Olena’s PhD thesis (University of Cambridge) explored the issues surrounding education reform, actors and balance of power of educational policy-making in Ukraine. Prior to joining the Kazakhstan Projects team, she led a project on ‘Return Academic Migration in Post-Communist Europe’ at the Centre for Area Studies, Free University Berlin and prior to that, a study on the ‘Sociology of Post-Communist Intellectuals’ at the Collegium Budapest, Hungary. Before embarking on her research and university teaching career, for five years Olena worked as an EFL teacher in Tsyurupynska Gymnasium, Kherson region, Ukraine.
Iryna Kosulya – Acting UERA Officer
Iryna is an Associate Professor at the Sociology of Management and Social Work Department, The School of Sociology of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Kharkiv, Ukraine) http://old.scsjournal.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=38%3Adr-iryna-kosulya-&Itemid=12. Iryna received her PhD degree in Sociology from V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Iryna is Member of SAU and Internatioanal Sociological Association (ISA) and a Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the on-line collection of research works ‘SOCIOПРОСТІР: the interdisciplinary collection of scientific works on sociology and social work’ http://www.sociology.kharkov.ua/socioprostir/index.php?lang=english Iryna’s main research interests concern conflict analysis and management/resolution, social policy and services, social inclusion and exclusion, social communications (in particular cross-cultural communications), inter-ethnic relationships and tolerance, international migration and sociocultural security.
Iryna Kushnir – Acting UERA Communication Officer
Iryna is a PhD student at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, UK, working on the thesis entitled ‘The Bologna Process in the Ukrainian Context: Insights into the European Higher Education Area.’ Iryna’s research interests include Europeanisation, institutions and institutional change, policy, narrative inquiry, higher education, pedagogy and gender. http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/gradschool/our_students/research_student_profiles/social_policy/iryna_kushnir
Joined the team in September 2015
Nadiya Skotna – Acting UERA Council Member
Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Rector of the Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University (Ukriane). Main research interests include philosophy of education, philosophical perspectives on individual identity and self-determination. She is a had of the specialised council on pedagogy.
Olena Kovalchuk – Acting UERA Council Member
Doctor of Pedagogy, Lutsk National Technical University (Lutsk, Ukraine). President of Ukrainian Forum on Educational Administration (member of European Forum on Educational Administration), member of BELMAS (British Educational Leadership and Management Society), the focus of interest is decentralization, autonomy and leadership in educational institutions.
Mariya Vitrukh – Acting pre-UERA Secretary
A project lead and research assistant for international US-Ukraine research projects, and conference support specialist at the US-based organization Precedent Academics (PA). She is also a pro-bono research and education consultant for local NGO Your Dimension, which is dedicated to promoting women’s rights. Prior to joining PA and Your Dimension, Mariya worked for three years as an adjunct lecturer at Ivan Franko Lviv National University. Mariya completed her second Master’s in Psychology and Education at the University of Cambridge in October 2013. She also has a Master’s degree in Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies from Ivan Franko National University in Ukraine. She is an Open Society Foundations and Cambridge Commonwealth Trusts alumni, awardee of Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute and The Opportunity Funds program. Her research interests include but are not limited to identity, professional identity of Higher Education teachers, gender issues in education, mindfulness, narrative inquiry, Higher Education.
Oksana Zabolotna – Acting pre-UERA Council Member
Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Professor, Professor at the Department of the Foreign Languages at Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University (Ukraine). http://kafpin.udpu.org.ua/pro-kafedru/sklad-kafedry/zabolotna-oksana-adolfivna/. Oksana is an Editor-in-Chief of the 'Comparative Education Studies' http://pps.udpu.org.ua/ , a co-coordinator of the EMINENCE i EMINENCE 2 (Erasmus Mundus) projects, a member of the working group ‘School teacher of the new generation’ (British Council and MOES), member of the History of Education Society and BELMAS (British Education Leadership Management and Administration Society)
Tetiana Lisova – Acting pre-UERA Council Member
Docent of Department of Applied Mathematics, Comput er Science and Educational Measurement at Nizhyn Mykola Gogol State University Ukraine. Tetyana’s main research interest include educational measurement, test modelling, item response theory (in education); statistics, data analysis, item response theory (in statistics) artificial intelligence, computer systems – Maple, MathCAD, Mathematica, R, SPSS (in programing). Tetyana was a participant of TEMPUS project “Educational Measurement, adapted to EU standards” (2009-2012).