Today we all are in difficult circumstances. If we talk about education, we must understand that the future of the state depends on our graduates who will have profound knowledge and skills: they can prove useful in the future when Ukraine enters the EU and during the postwar cultural and material repair, recovery, and development. Therefore, projects such as UTTERLY should not be stopped, because thanks to the exchange of best practices with European higher education institutions our teachers will be able not only to retain their skills during the war but also to learn the new ones.

On April 20, 2022, a series of trainings on “INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO PROMOTION TEACHING EXCELLENCE” as part of the project “UTTERLY: University Teachers’ Certification Centers” was launched at the University of Versailles in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (France). 70 representatives of the Higher Education Institutions which are project partners are participating in the project, in particular: Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman, Kryvyi Rih National University, Lutsk National Technical University, Poltava V.G. Korolenko National Pedagogical University (PNPU), Volodymyr Vynnychenko Central Ukrainian State Pedagogical University, Hryhorii Skovoroda University in Pereiaslav ,National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, Nizhyn Mykola Gogol State University, Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) ( Lithuania), Bayreuth University ( Germany), University of Versailles in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (France), Wroclaw University of Science and Technology.

Jan Borm, Vice President for International Relations at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (France), addressed the audience. He shared useful information about the peculiarities of the higher education system, the organization of the educational process in French universities, the requirements for certification of teachers, the principles of university faculty formation, the features of international academic mobility within Erasmus +, motivational aspects of teaching and more.

It is important to mention that together with the universities of Lithuania, Germany, France, and Poland, among the students we see representatives of our Ukrainian universities which are situated in the active combat zone. This shows that our education is ready to stay up to date with innovation even in such difficult for the state times, it proves that our teachers despite the air-raids warnings and difficult emotional state, which all Ukrainians are experiencing now, are striving to provide their students only educational services of high quality.

Classes will run from 20 to 22 April and will include four lectures on the following topics: “Teaching excellence in international relations” (Jan Borm – Vice-President UVSQ International Relations), “Designing educational packages about the Arctic with research results for secondary schools / connecting nano satellites and education “(Alain Sarkissian – Adjunct-Physicist, Atmosphere Physics),” The Erasmus + project HLITL “- Marie Sikias (International Office, UVSQ) and Jan Borm (Vice-President UVSQ International Relations),” Teaching Arctic Studies to political science students “- Eda Ayaydin (Institute of Political Science, Bordeaux).

The course is taught by leading experts from European universities in English. During the lectures, course participants have the opportunity to find out about the current educational trends, prospects for certain studies, etc. We are also planning the next UTTERLY meetings soon, in May. We wish the course participants and lecturers effective cooperation, peaceful and quiet training days.