The Ukrainian Educational Research Association (pre-UERA) is a non-governmental, non-for-profit research organisation, a predecessor of the Ukrainian Educational Research Association (UERA) and a Candidate member of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) http://www.eera-ecer.de/.
Pre-EURA was created by a group of four volunteers in June 2015 with the ambition to build a nation-wide viable research organisation and apply for a full membership at European Educational Research Association (EERA). In September 2015 five more Ukrainian scholars joined the team.
On September 12, 2015 EERA Council has approved Ukraine’s Candidate membership at EERA with Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University as a hub for building a nation-wide research organisation.
On December 1, 2015 the Constituent Founder’s Assembly of Ukrainian Educational Research Association of was held. On December 14, 2015 UERA was registered and acquired the status of a legal entity.
The pre-UERA values of:
- democratic governance;
- ethical research;
- peer-reviewing;
- evidence-based pedagogy;
- collaboration;
- capacity-building;
- inter-disciplinarity.
Team of pre-UERA (June 2015 - present)
Svitlana Shchudlo – Acting pre-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 pre-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 pre-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 pre-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 pre-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 pre-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).