Supporting Ukraine through citizen engagement at Baltic Universities

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 Balti...

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.

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).