Supporting Ukraine through citizen engagement at Baltic Universities

<< Background >>Three main motivations drove the launch of the Baltics4UA project. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, neighboring countries, especially the Baltics, have received numerous Ukrainian refugees. Project partners committed to social actions supporting Ukrainians both in Ukraine and the Baltic region. We identified a need for cross-country and cross-institutional coordination of humanitarian support.Secondly, enhancing Baltic HEIs' capacity and inclusion mechanisms in humanitarian crises required upskilling HE staff, emphasizing human dignity, human rights, and solidarity. To achieve this, we planned citizen engagement actions, uniting academic staff, students, citizens, local communities, and regional/national stakeholders.Thirdly, we aimed to design transparent, sustainable actions for curriculum development. Integrating knowledge, experience, and skills, we sought participatory actions for social purposes, fostering inclusive HE systems and innovative learning practices. A key gap was engaging quadruple helix actors—business, public sector, community, and HEIs—in collaborative efforts.<< Objectives >>The general objective of the Baltics4UA project was to enhance Baltic universities' social responsibility through civic engagement actions addressing the Ukrainian humanitarian crisis in the Baltics.To achieve this, we set two main objectives:1. Enable Baltic universities to support Ukrainian populations by engaging quadruple helix actors (science, policy, industry, and society). A landscape analysis of HEIs’ citizen engagement activities was planned to guide methodology development and four types of engagement actions—citizen science, hacktivism, maker movement, and artistic expression. These aimed to strengthen HEIs’ resilience and cooperation with quadruple helix actors in humanitarian crises while empowering academic staff, students, and citizens to actively support Ukrainians in the Baltics.2. Stimulate innovative educational practices and staff upskilling at Baltic HEIs through cross-cultural dialogue, citizen engagement, and business-academia cooperation. The focus was on HEIs' capacity building, fostering collaboration between citizen groups, stakeholders, and universities to develop strong resilience models in humanitarian crises.<< Implementation >>We implemented five main types of activities in the Baltics4UA project to achieve our goals.We conducted two desktop studies: a comprehensive landscape analysis (WP2A1) mapping citizen engagement initiatives for Ukraine organized by Baltic universities and a business-academia report (WP2A10) collecting examples to foster academic resilience in crisis response.We organized social engagement actions (WP2A2, A3, A7, A12; WP3A1, A2, A7, A12) through online and face-to-face meetings. Some were short-term, while others lasted up to four months, allowing for different levels of engagement. Two hackathon challenges were run by international teams organized by W2L.We developed methodological materials, including a methodology for designing, implementing, and assessing citizen engagement (WPA6), open-access educational materials for academic staff (WP3A4), a podcast series (WP3A5), and a template for planning social activities.We produced open-access publications, with partners collaborating on writing and some presenting project results at conferences.Dissemination played a key role in sharing project outcomes. We continuously followed our dissemination plan, sharing updates via social media and multiplier events (WP3A9, A10, A11).<< Results >>Over 1,000 participants engaged in activities, and the dissemination generated at least 30,000 contacts through various media.Key Deliverables of the project:Desktop study mappings: Showcase of 59 social action initiatives developed across the Baltics (D1) and a report on business-academia collaboration fostering academic resilience in crisis response (D7).Open-access publications, available on zenodo.org and some conference platforms: Landscape Analysis of Citizen Engagement Initiatives (D2, plus an extra collection), Citizen Engagement Activities Organized in the Project as part of WP2A7 activities (D5), and a summary of WP3A1 & A2 experience cafés (D9, D13). Syntheses of D2 and D5 were provided in each partner language (D3, D6).Methodology for organizing citizen engagement activities was developed (D4), along with an additional template for partners. Open-access educational materials for academic staff (D10) were created, supported by a podcast series with six episodes (D11).Policy brief “Higher Education in Humanitarian Crises: Resilience, Social Inclusion, Innovation” (D8) provides policy recommendations. Country-level reports (D12) highlight HEIs' resilience and give an overview of quadruple helix actor engagement.