and also which we hear around Europe and during all events we are participating in. We would really appreciate that we would talk about Ukraine, we will talk about the brutal invasion of Russia to Ukraine

and a brutal war against Ukraine, but not in Ukraine. And that we all understand that these are the really important things to speak about the war, but not about the crisis. This is not the crisis. We do not have such meaning of the crisis in our country,

but we really have a war. And even though the situation happened this week and even today, I don't know whether you know already, there was the annexation announced already of the oblast, but top up the war, the people bombarded and died today,

the civilians. And that's really the horrors which all in Ukraine are surviving with and living with every day. And in this presentation you can find a lot of information of everything that had happened from the very beginning of the war and updating the information every day and every night.

That's like all the time was a breaking heart. But this is also to be bared in mind all the time when we say that, okay, it is sometimes it's already normal in Ukraine or just better. No, it is like really a white thread. But even under this horror, which our universities,

our educators and our people are surviving with, we are continuing our internationalization, we are continuing our work, we are continuing our educational process. And with all these challenges, the cooperation continues. And we are struggling for universities,

we are struggling for our students and also the pupils and all others in education every day and with your support and cooperation with you. And we really appreciate if you continue this path. We understand also the different difficulties, all we survive with,

but that's what should be bared in mind when we also consider and talk about Ukraine. We understand that you know a lot and already read a lot and today we are going to be talking about Erasmus Plus

as the opportunity for cooperation. And just for the clear picture that our universities continue their educational process in hybrid form, in distance form or even face to face if they have shelters, but the process continues.

And within all this work, the cooperation within Erasmus Plus helps a lot even to save lives of people at the very beginning of war. And also now it becomes more important not only for the young generation to come here and for teachers to come here,

but also to have more impact at the institutional level. And we will talk about it later. Just, I will skip the slides, but this is the information which has the history as well from the beginning starting from 2014 that everybody understands what is the situation in Ukraine

and how it is evolving. And just every time we see that there is the need of help at any stages and any levels and we would appreciate if you have the opportunity to contribute to it. In this presentation you have all information about the system before the war

and now with all the challenges. And also we collected all the data, all the statistics on the before war and during the war in the educational system with the videos on everything and also information about recognition.

Since European Commission and partners in Erasmus Plus projects reacted immediately after the beginning of the war and collected a lot of resources devoted to the recognition that also the universities, the schools in European countries could easier work with the pupils

and with the students who come to you for the study, for continuous study. And also there is some national legislation issues and the strategies for the future cooperation. As you know that within Erasmus Plus we have all the time justified,

the value added and also the national strategies. So first of all we are thinking on the national strategies within Ukraine and then we also link them to the European strategies. But of course now we have key challenges which are facing by our universities

and I would stop on that. Within the responses which were done by... I will just list this through. The responses which were done by our ministries but in cooperation also with all stakeholders and authorities and international communities, a lot of things already done

and they prepared the urgency envelopes where the help is needed. And here also you can find these links where your definite help for even described projects could be already contributed within the joint application

to apply to different institutions. One and first reaction of the European Commission was within Erasmus Plus is the special guide, the exclusive measures for the mobility. And in this case we appreciated a lot that you really reacted immediately

and allocated a lot of budget to Ukrainian students and staff. Just a slight request as for now. Will you please also follow the conclusion of the inter-institutional agreements which was not required within these specific measures

but only for the universities in Ukraine which are destroyed or are not operational. While our universities are operational and if you fail to find the relevant contact within the Ukrainian university please contact us, we will help with that. Because it is important also not only for the recognition of the study but also important for all the official procedures to be fulfilled in.

And I think it is important also to say about that the challenges with crossing the border of the male students. And according to the legislation it is not allowed but there were certain exclusions. But at the moment for those who already applied for credit mobility projects

and facing the difficulty to cross the border within Erasmus Plus we really appreciate if you contact us on those matters that we also communicated with the universities and the ministry. They provide letters to the state border services where after that what we see now

there were successful stories for the crossing the border for the male students but Erasmus Plus because it's an international agreement in fact. But please just be aware of the necessity of this agreement as well.

Here we describe a lot of challenges and needs which could be put as the ideas for the project. But just to get into the point of the opportunities provided we should bear in mind that Ukraine changed the status within the European Union

but not yet the status within the programme. So we state the third country not associated with the programme. And with this we have how do you think how many opportunities to cooperate? Five, ten, 31. So there are 31 calls for proposals which are open for Ukraine

being a partner or third country not associated to the programme which is stated now in the new programme guide. And we have the opportunity to be the applicants and also the partners in certain calls. But it also opens us lots of opportunities for cooperation

and contributes not only for the capacity building of the universities, vocational education and training institutions in Ukraine but also to help Ukrainians who are already here in Europe. And with that there are certain calls which I would stop later a bit. So then the structures to help.

We have of course the offices and other institutions which could help. And the procedure is going via the portals. Two portals for decentralised and centralised actions. And the platform for partnership is also open by the European Commission within the EPEL, Tweenin and other platforms for youth cooperation

where you can find a lot of context and information for cooperation as well as the marketplace for the calls, for the partnership search. While here we focus on the actions by the opportunity when we are partners,

when we apply as partners together with consortium of international universities, I mean European universities. But please have a look into the opportunity to cooperate in higher education but via the youth actions in mobility too.

Because here you can organise also the summer school, winter schools for young people who are here or just for... to invite also young people here to Europe and maybe to have a kind of virtual exchanges at certain extent. But also the universities can be partners with that.

And we have a good example here from Nipro University of Technology who implemented such projects and it was very successful as well. So Ukrainian universities are really very much active already in different applications, writing, and we are happy to receive good news.

We haven't yet known the final number of projects but capacity building projects have been already received by the coordinators the good news and the news for improvement for the next call to apply, let's call it like this. But we know about 10, we hope there would be more, up to maybe 15.

But within Jean Monnet actions we received 93 projects. And it was also a kind of flexibility from the European Commission when they even opened the additional call for proposal under Jean Monnet. Because the deadline was the 1st of March.

How do you think, how many applications were prepared in the first day of March when the war started on the 24th of February? Approximately 50, another 30, 20, okay, it was 275.

So you see that even though being under all the threats and horrors surviving we're always thinking about the future, the future rebuilding of Ukraine. So that community is already really before war very well prepared to just jump into the international community and to cooperate actively.

And we have really very good partners and the results of the project. So within the key action one, what we also see through the implementation of this action, that this action is a little bit underestimated, underused.

On the sense it is possible to have the institutional impact. And here we also suggest a few ideas for like complementarity, complementarity between different actions and especially the complementarity from staff mobility, for example,

to invite Ukrainian partners to the, as an example, European alliances, European university alliances when we are associated partners there and cannot receive the funding. But within the key action one, the staff could be invited

to the events of the European universities alliances and also to organize some activities. Again, as the complementarity, but do not forget for the next application also to mention that you're going to complement between different actions. Like, for example, as well to think about the new courses

and to develop the courses while being in Europe in foreign language, then it will give you the opportunity to implement it within your curricula and then invite students from your partner university where you are doing your Erasmus, for example, as a teacher or as a trainer in administrative staff. So there are some ideas which could be, again,

described by the project proposals in key action one. And as well as what's in Italian with the project, what you're doing, that also could be a good opportunity to jump in with this idea. And like the staff mobility to Ukraine, of course, during the war,

we can speak about only virtual part to Ukraine. But again, we have some partners who even visited Ukraine in this time and also who even visited the front lines to see with their own eyes what is happening. And if we see this virtual component,

of course, like the teaching courses get lecturers, the standard one, but also what today we learned from the experience of the research projects where you create the virtual laboratories, which also could be the opportunity to see how you create it and then maybe to implement these approaches then under another action.

Another series of parts of the opportunities, it is done if the value added justified. And within it, there are like cooperation partnership and we have cooperation partnership in school education, vocational education training, higher education, adult education,

youth and sports, so they are all open for Ukraine to be partner. And of course, not all organizations can justify this value added, but in fact, majority of organizations and even before war already had enough capacities. And also, with the help of your project,

while you can see exactly the potential developed within other research projects with German universities, so you can then see what could be another partnership created to implement these innovations all over the world and to boost this cooperation, as well as for the alliances for education

and enterprise alliances for sectoral cooperation and skills. And what is more, the cooperation with the centers of excellence, centers of vocational excellence, where the vocational educational institutions are currently critical and need internationalization. And they just start their way into it.

And just as an example, where the cooperation partnership in school, that's higher education, youth and sports, with some unique courses might be already implemented. And again, some researches, which you could maybe implement them further to the educational process.

And it could be tools, platforms, technologies. And attention to the two calls. This is not two calls, two actions, but six calls, which are not eligible for Ukrainian organizations to be partners,

but Ukrainians who are here abroad could be the target audience. I'm talking about small-scale partnership and looking-forward partnership. All who are here already could be your target audience. So you can do the needs analysis and then organize the specific platform, specific platform not only for the online work,

but platform also for the offline, like also to invite students and all people to share their stories and to speak about their perspective for what they passed through, what they learned,

if they are ready to do so. And the last part, which is also critical, that's the European universities alliances where we can't be associated partners yet. Well, it means that no funding for Ukrainian partners,

but remember about complementarity. We are having the negotiation also in discussion with the European Commission on the opening it up and also for creation additional envelope for Ukraine, and we hope that it will work out. But we also need your support from, for example, German universities, if you think, on the, we would like to call it like,

urgency or emergency envelope to be created from the funds, which are, for example, the agency remains from the region, so which haven't used the funds already allocated to them. Like, for example, we know that some regions like Western Balkans,

they didn't have enough capacity to absorb the funds because they do not have so many students and universities. But to top up the war against Ukraine, then we have other countries where these funds could be used rather than returned back and then they are just disappeared.

It would be more effective to use them for to mitigate or just to respond to these challenges. Then please be aware that Erasmus Mundus design measures, Erasmus Mundus joint master degrees are extremely important now for Ukrainian universities. I think, I hope that universities confirm who are here from Ukraine.

Am I telling the truth? Okay, so then because the needs are there and it could be again a complementarity like one module they have developed in foreign language, another one in other projects or even to start capacity building projects to develop the program from the scratch.

But if already existing modules available in different universities, you can organise it within design measures, which are providing like 55,000 euro for managing of this consortium and developing the design, the methodology, the processes to agreements.

Yes, I will be finished. And Ukrainian universities can be applicants for design measures, for joint master degree programs, for capacity building in the field of higher education and Jean Monair. And within Jean Monair, we have the most successful rate

of the quality of the application. So in case you are interested in the European studies and you have the already researched publications in this area, then this is like... In any university in Ukraine, you can find Jean Monist at the moment.

This is for sure. And like with these European studies, they can be devoted to any subject area. There is no restrictions at all. This is not about the legislation or something about European Union. This is like the experience or expertise in different fields, absolutely.

So there are also some ideas and especially what we are looking for now with the inclusiveness as the also core focus of the projects. And we really appreciate if you focus in every project you work with Ukraine on the inclusiveness, on the greening and digital technologies.

We do not have yet the culture in Ukraine, also on the usage of green technologies and digital technologies already developed, but still, again, with the war, we need to recuperate it later.

I mean, again. And within the purchase of equipment, of course, do not think only of the computers, but on some virtual or added reality documents. So that's like the example of the resources and our contacts.

Please do not hesitate to contact us at any time where you need the help in Ukraine and the contacts if you fail to find any relevant one at the moment. And I would like to give applause, if I may, to all of you and also our gratitude for everything you've done,

because this really makes us stronger and continues this defendants in Ukraine. And glory to Ukraine. Slava ukraine.