The event, titled ‘EU for Ukrainian SMEs: Together We Are Resilient’, discussed the current progress of a several-month communication campaign dedicated to the EU’s support for micro, small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine in times of war. The outcomes were summed up on 29 February by EU diplomats, representatives of NGOs and entrepreneurs.

The event brought together about 80 participants.

The EU has also made a significant contribution to supporting Ukrainian SMEs during the two difficult years of war demonstrating flexibility and the capacity to make prompt decisions. In particular, this has resulted in 1,100 businesses receiving operational grant assistance through the EU4Business programme, which has a grant budget of EUR 7 million over two years, with another EUR 2 million to be added this year.

Therefore, in addition to grant support, EU4Business and its partner organisations provided SMEs with advice and expertise, facilitated their access to foreign markets, and helped create a better regulatory environment for doing business in Ukraine.

According to entrepreneur and public figure Valeriy Pekar, retaining and developing SMEs is one of the objectives of Ukraine’s EU integration process.

The futurist is convinced that the rule of law and market deregulation are key to European integration and SME development. The EU also promotes this in cooperation with various think tanks and civil society.

For example, with the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO). With EU support, the organisation’s representatives work with the interagency working group on deregulation under the Cabinet of Ministers. The group reviews all state regulatory instruments and decides whether to remove, optimise or keep them.

The EU4Ukraine project, which implemented the ‘Together We Are Resilient. Together We Are Europe’ campaign, actively engaged representatives of small and medium-sized businesses. Some of them became winners of the 2023 Business Recognition Awards.

The grant programmes help businesses reduce their financial burden and enable them to free up or attract resources for their development. For example, for product marketing, improving production processes, and staff training. This strengthens the capacity and resilience of MSMEs even in times of war.

The EU grant assistance is discussed in an article by Dmytro Lyvch, Chairman of the Board of EasyBusiness, published by Ekonomichna Pravda as part of the ‘Together We Are Resilient. Together we are Europe’ communication campaign.

For its part, the European Union responds flexibly to the needs of micro, small and medium-sized businesses.

MSME support programmes provide entrepreneurs with the necessary resources not only for recovery, but also to spur innovation, strengthen competitiveness in foreign markets and boost export potential, the publication says.

In Kyiv, the KINO42 cinema hosted the documentary film festival Culture in Times of War in Ukraine, organised by the EU Delegation in cooperation with the Ukrainian studies project Ukraїner. This screening marked the end of the ‘Together We Create. Together we preserve’ communication campaign.

Five films were screened during the festival. Four of them were regional, about cultural processes in the east, south, north and centre of the country. The fifth film was thematic and focused on museums during the full-scale invasion.

Ukraїner has been working on the five films screened at the festival since last spring. The first one, ‘Culture in Time of War. The West’ was released last June.

After Kyiv, the festival travelled to Chernihiv, and is scheduled to visit other cities.

The ‘Together We Create. Together We Preserve’ communication campaign has been running since March 2023. It aims to showcase the EU’s support for the preservation of Ukrainian cultural heritage and the development of culture in times of war.

In February, the Uzhhorod Press Club hosted the first classes of the Storytelling Studio. It is attended by 30 children aged from 12 and young people from the city. “We have never had so many children at the Press Club, but we will manage,” the organisers shared their emotions on Facebook on the occasion of the first class.

The project titled “10 Stories Without an Expiration Date” is being implemented as part of the Culture Helps programme with the support of the European Union by “Insha Osvita” (NGO Other Education) in cooperation with the German organisation Zusa.

A total of 7 sessions are planned on writing texts, creating photos, shooting and editing videos. As a result, the workshop participants will prepare 10 multimedia stories together. They work in teams, with both local residents and children of internally displaced persons among the participants.

The classes will last until the end of March. At the first one, the children studied photojournalism, and at the second one, they got acquainted with cameraman’s work and discussed the angle of view to be able to capture the best shots. After the theory, the participants worked with the coaches to create multimedia stories. Before the training began, the Uzhhorod Press Club had conducted a survey to determine potential topics of interest to the children.

One of the participants, 15-year-old Ignat from Uzhhorod, considers the Storytelling Studio to be a great opportunity to try something new.

12-year-old Veronika is from Dnipro. She enjoys writing texts and is good at framing.

Iryna Breza is convinced that even in the short time of the project, the coaches will be able to inspire the participants and teach them the first steps, each in their own area of expertise. So, they are bound to succeed.

In February, the Luhansk State Medical University relocated to Rivne launched a new Simulation Training Centre. Advanced technology equipment, dummies, machine-tools and robot simulators will help students master their skills.

The centre was created and equipped in renovated premises as part of the EU-funded project called Support for the Recovery and Development of Luhansk State Medical University.

A virtual patient is particularly popular at the Simulation Training Centre. This simulator is based on the role-playing principle, where the trainee feels like a doctor, conducts examinations, makes diagnoses and prescribes treatment, sees the consequences of his or her own decisions and analyses his or her actions.

Prior to the full-scale Russian invasion, Luhansk State Medical University was based in Rubizhne, where it moved from Luhansk in 2014. In March 2022, it had to relocate for the second time. Proper technical equipment is important for the full-fledged arrangement and further development of the university at the new place.

Also in February, the university purchased a new multi-seater vehicle as part of the EU project, which will provide students and teachers with greater mobility and the opportunity to attend activities outside of LSMU. In particular, trips to educational institutions in Rivne and the region with a series of trainings on First Aid in War are scheduled for the near future.

In February, a restoration workshop was completed in Zaporizhzhia to recover the region’s antiquities. Ancient chests, cabinets, chairs and other furniture, showcases, mirrors, and items of peasant household life were all taken out of the dangerous frontline areas by the Huliaypole Antiquities NGO.

The equipment for the workshop was purchased at the expense of the EU-funded House of Europe project. The organisation was one of 15 awardees in the small infrastructure projects competition. In total, 421 applications were submitted for the call.

The reality of the war prompted the organisation to create such a workshop. Before the full-scale invasion, they were setting up a museum of antiquities in Huliaypole, and the opening was planned for mid-2022. However, instead, everything collected had to be evacuated. Moreover, they had to collect antiquities in villages in the frontline area. Sometimes people ask to take and preserve them.

There is a lot of work to be done, and there are more than a dozen unrestored chests now, says the organisation’s leader. These chests, where women kept their marriage portions, are very special items in the collection. They are of different shapes and, in modern terms, designs. Even the names of the owners of some of the chests are known.

The lathes in the new workshop will start working in the near future. The organisation plans to recover several exhibits by the end of the project and possibly host a small exhibition.

Continuous air raid alerts are currently the main barrier to learning in schools. This is the opinion of students, their parents, teachers and school administrators who took part in the survey called ‘War and Education. Two years of full-scale invasion’.

It was conducted by the SavED Foundation together with the VoxPopuli Agency with the support of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme. The survey report was presented in mid-February.

Students also mentioned other reasons for the difficulties in learning, such as some subjects being harder to understand, too many subjects, and lack of concentration. In addition to air raids, teachers and school administrators see a lack of technical means to properly conduct classes as a significant obstacle.

The survey shows that students and schools are trying to adjust to the hostilities. More than 60% of students are completely or ‘rather’ satisfied with their academic performance over the past year. This figure is slightly lower (56%) for parents and teachers — 52%. At the same time, the majority of students, parents and teachers believe that their academic performance will improve in the current academic year.

The vast majority of students surveyed plan to continue their education after school. 35% would like to enter one of the leading Ukrainian higher education institutions, 25% want to go for a different university or college in Ukraine, and 18% – to study abroad. It is clear that in order to fulfil these ambitious plans, quality school education is required.

From facial recognition to chatbots like GPT and image creation using Stability AI, it’s already a reality today. In February, the EU-funded EU4DigitalUA project, the Ombudsman’s Office and the Ministry of Digital Transformation presented Ukraine’s first guidelines on artificial intelligence (AI) and personal data protection.

The document provides general recommendations for finding ways to solve potential problems and seize opportunities offered by AI.

They give an example when a development company presented a face recognition project in an AI-based video surveillance system. In testing, the system delivered excellent performance, accurately recognising faces in 99% of cases. However, after deploying this technology in a real environment, errors appeared under certain conditions. For example, when faces are poorly lit or at unusual viewing angles. Therefore, despite the high accuracy of the data during testing, the system may be less effective in real-world conditions due to factors that were not taken into account during machine learning.

Further steps include the development of more specific guidelines that will focus on specific AI issues.