Students and graduate students will join the project activities of local communities.
On June 14, the university hosted a round table discussion on project management. The co-organizers of the event were the Project-Educational Center «Agents of Changes» of the Precarpathian National University and the Ivano-Frankivsk regional branch of the Association of Ukrainian Cities.
The key goal of the event was to involve active youth in solving important problems of social, economic and cultural development on the basis of a project approach in the context of strategic planning for the development of the region.
The round table was opened by the rector of the university, Igor Tsependa, and Svitlana Kropelnytska, the director of the Project-Educational Center «Agents of Changes», associate professor of finance department of economics faculty.
«European integration and decentralization reforms require modern higher education institutions to train not just a specialist, but a specialist-innovator who is able to make management decisions independently in solving issues of strategic development in various spheres of public life. One of the most promising teaching methods is the project method, which is also a tool for implementing development strategies», – said Svitlana Kropelnytska.
University partners, in particular the executive director of the Ivano-Frankivsk regional branch of the Association of Ukrainian Cities, Yuriy Stefanchuk, announced a joint project competition «Today’s creative idea – tomorrow’s reality», which will result in successful projects of university students and their co-financing by local communities and authorities.
The day before, a joint order was signed by the University and the IF of the AUC Regional Council to approve the Regulations on the project competition and the composition of the Competition Council, which included representatives of both counterparts. Days for information and consultation of the announced Competition for filling out conceptual applications and basic trainings on preparation of project applications in full form will be held by «Agents of Changes» in partnership with the Association of Ukrainian Cities in September in the current year.
Igor Parasyuk, the chief speaker, an expert specialist in decentralization and strengthening of local self-government, the head of the USAID project «Developing a Course for Strengthening the Local Self-Government in Ukraine» implemented by the AUC, spoke about current aspects of project activities as an important component of territorial development strategy.
The head of the NGO «Sociocenter», Diana Torkonyak, shared with the audience the results of research on community awareness and participation in project activities, involvement of local self-government, the part of successful projects in grant competitions in the region etc.
The director of the Educational and Scientific Center for Sociological Research of Precarpathian National University, Olga Maksymovych, presented the results of socio-measurements based on surveys of participants of the meeting with representatives of European Funds (https://drive.google.com/file/d/12gpGkpDZfEqE1qtuLqsIDM_Muk4uR9X8/view?usp=sharing) that was held at the university in May this year and other empirical sources on the vision of project activities in the Carpathian region.
Mykola Skidanyuk, an expert of the AUC, provided the participants of the round table on the information about competitions for international technical assistance projects, various grant programs, the amount of funds raised in the Ivano-Frankivsk region and the problems and prospects of project-grant activities.
The participants of the round table received valuable advice and recommendations from project specialists on project writing and project management and at the same time scientists, graduate students and university students were motivated to become agents of effective change in the development of our region.