Main project aim: To reduce the negative social consequences of military and economic reforms in Ukraine on retired military personnel and their family members.

The secondary aims are amongst others to help the participants to open their own businesses, as well as to establish new projects between Norwegian and Ukrainian institutions and businesses as a result of the links to the retraining project.

Project results: Integration of military personnel and adult members of their families into civilian society after being discharged from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other law enforcement agencies in terms of: (1) Professional retraining in the civil specialties that are in demand in the labour market. (2) Social adaptation: psychological adaptation, legal adaptation and employment assistance.

The cities, which are covered by the project this semester: Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ternopil, Vinnitsa, Mykolayiv, Odesa, Kirovohrad, Chernihiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Melitopol, Zaporizhzhya, Dnipro and Uzhorod. In particular, 18 universities have cooperated with the International Foundation for Social Adaptation and Nord University in the retraining process and many NGOs in the process of psychological adaptation and employment assistance in the period from 2015. Overall, from 2003 to 2017 around 9000 persons were socially adapted thanks to the project.

​The aim of the project is to contribute to modernization of the Ukrainian universities and make them more transparent in their activities. It is a way to assist the European integration of the universities and their financial possibilities for self-development, and to strengthen university autonomy. During project realisation, a main concept of internal control and COSO framework will be elaborated; and local versions, for each university will be proposed. The Norwegian experience will be adapted to the partner universities’ conditions.

The project shall lead to an online competence improvement course with a physical component on the use of Internal Control (IC) and especially the COSO framework for IC for administrative personnel at Ukrainian Universities. This will provide knowledge of a modern framework for internal control and its possible application and practices, with an emphasis on the Public Sector and universities, but also drawing on examples from the private sector. This will help University management with bringing new ideas for improving their systems of internal controls, as well as providing links between Ukrainian universities and the private sectors.

The project goal is harmonization of a research training education in the field of public sector accounting, budgeting and finance, between Nord University (NU), Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (KNU) and other partner universities in the project. Built on a close and lasting cooperation and partnership between NU and KNU, this project aims to establish a joint PhD training program at KNU in order to address the needs of Ukrainian academia in gaining experience and relevant training in conducting the high-quality research. The program will provide opportunity for PhD students and young researchers to receive research training on the international level, skillful in critical thinking when conducting research and able of publishing in good quality international peer-reviewed journals. 

The project team involves higher educational institutions (HEIs) from Norway, Ukraine and Azerbaijan, internationally recognized researchers and educators, national authorities and international organizations and is built on the principles of relevance and joint interests, competency in project area, complementary skills and ability to bring cross-country impacts. 

The program will address several important needs of Ukrainian higher education: 

1) harmonization of the content of Ukrainian programs for educating postgraduate students; 

2) develop deeper knowledge, competences and skills regarding abilities of doing high level international research in the field of public sector budgeting, accounting and finance; 

3) reinforce the long-term partnership between higher educational institutions in Ukraine, NU and international partners.