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With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the European Union (EU) expanded, and its borders, and therefore its neighbors, changed. Hence, the EU needed a new policy to ensure its borders' security and improve relations with its neighbors. The idea of establishing a European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) thus emerged. One of the closest neighbors of the EU, Ukraine has always been in a priority position in the ENP, as it is a very important state for establishing a safe neighborhood. In this context, this article examines the EU's Ukraine strategy within the framework of ENP as a foreign policy instrument and its impact on Ukraine and EU–Ukraine relations by evaluating ENP's success based on the Euromaidan and Crimean crises.

Introduction: Today the ability of nations to develop and implement innovations is core for their international competitiveness. Ukraine is striving for innovation progress; however, its innovation performance is relatively low. The research problem is to find the bottlenecks, affecting Ukraine’s innovation capability.

Purpose: This study aims to research the national innovation capability profiles, based on cluster analysis, to develop an understanding of drivers and threats for the innovation capability of Ukraine.

Need of the study: The knowledge-based economy, which had already turned into one of the most efficient developmental models of the 21st century, became a key driver of international competitiveness for the leading developed countries due to their progressive structural shifts towards the growth of high-technology manufacturing and knowledge-intensive sectors. These trends are significant to capture for the sake of increasing the innovation capability of the economy of Ukraine.

Methodology: The study is based on the K-means clustering method, which is employed for identifying 10 country clusters based on the indicators of their R&D and innovation activities, which allowed us to assess the innovation capability of Ukraine in comparison with 140 countries of the world. Data selection and normalisation were based on the 2019 Global Competitiveness Report indicators.

Findings: The study showed that Ukraine’s innovation capability problems are typical for most developing countries and are prevalently connected to low R&D expenditures, patent applications, and international co-invention activities. Most countries, except for the technologically developed ones, follow the so-called ‘passive technological learning’ strategies, which usually result in low economic productivity.

Practical implications: Several innovation policy implications have been developed for the government of Ukraine based on the cluster analysis results and accounting for the problems of the national innovation system (NIS).

This chapter provides the details of the political context of Ukraine and presents the details of the findings of the research conducted on the higher education actors involved in the Bologna reform in Ukraine before 2014. Four clusters of actors are discussed: the central governing bodies, their consultants, civil sector organisations and higher education institutions. All of these clusters existed before Bologna. Prior to Bologna, the relationships among them were defined by the central cluster. It fully controlled the work of higher education institutions and the consultative bodies, and it avoided the influence of the civil sector. Such power relations among these actors have been partially preserved in Bologna and have been argued by the civil sector to hinder the Europeanisation of higher education. However, the strict centralisation in the higher education system of Ukraine started to weaken, albeit marginally, during Bologna. The cooperation between the civil sector and the central governing bodies strengthened, largely, due to the partnership developed between the Ministry and the National TEMPUS/ERASMUS Plus Office. The latter actor, in its turn, has been slightly diluting the strict control of the Ministry over higher education policy-making. A gradually burgeoning and increasing cooperation among different actors, facilitated primarily by the civil sector, seems to have been accompanied by a slowly decreasing centralisation in the relationships among higher education actors in Bologna.

This chapter draws together the findings about both the Bologna actors and instruments to explain the mechanism of the Bologna reform in Ukraine until 2014 and its place in Europeanisation in the post-Soviet context.

This research demonstrates that continuity was mainly perpetuated by the Ministry of Education and Science, and change was facilitated by civil organisations. There was a lot of fluidity in the interaction of old practices and policy innovation in Bologna in Ukraine. The interaction between the path dependency and change was primarily a gradual chaotic, yet creative, and shared build-up of minor innovations by different higher education actors. These innovations in the development of the Bologna instruments may be seen as leading to more substantial transformations over time.

The research findings may also serve as a first step towards a reconceptualisation of the Europeanisation process particularly in the post-Soviet context in the first couple of decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bologna in Ukraine can be seen as an illustration of the ways in which Europeanisation may not always necessitate the elimination of past conventions and practices – indeed, in a policy field such as education, abandoning history and tradition would have been a futile endeavour. Policy continuity in the post-Soviet context may be a foundation in the Europeanisation process during which minor innovations are slowly yet continuously being accumulated. This foundation shapes the nature of changes. Therefore, perhaps, the debate regarding a slow pace of Europeanisation in the post-Soviet space might be erroneous, since it carries a hidden assumption – that it is slow in relation to a much faster Europeanisation and resulting transformations in the EU. Such a comparison should be revisited in light of a potential difference in the nature of Europeanisation in the two spaces and the acknowledgement of growing overlaps between the two spaces as well.

Diaspora tourism primarily refers to various population groups, including migrants, foreign workers, political refugees, ethnic and religious minorities and overseas communities living away from their ancestral homeland for various reasons. Throughout history, people have been forced to leave their original homeland due to various factors ranging from economic crises to natural and human-made tragedies, including war. The 24 February 2022 unjustified and unproved Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, which started on the heels of the two-year COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in massive and terrible consequences for many domains of political, economic and social life. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has generated the largest historical migration flows at a scale unforeseen in Europe since World War II. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, at least 12 million people have been displaced from their homes, according to the United Nations. The unprecedented influx of the Ukrainian people raises concerns about future developments, issues and challenges associated with Ukrainians' presence in other countries, particularly neighbouring ones. Therefore, this chapter analyses the possibility of diaspora tourism for Ukrainians shortly by utilising a critical approach when the situation stabilises in Ukraine. To begin with, this chapter first explains diaspora tourism with its definition and characteristics. Furthermore, it reviews the literature on the Russia–Ukraine war and its impact on Ukrainian tourism. In conclusion, it discusses the new Ukrainian diaspora wave soon.

Ukraine's immigration policy is in a state of formation, and its legal framework is being constantly improved. The level of immigration in Ukraine remains low. Foreigners often view Ukraine not as a desirable place of residence, but as a transit territory, a convenient corridor or a jumping-off place for realization on the path to a dream destination – living in Europe. The evaluation of the features of immigrants' integration in Ukraine is conducted.

The authors investigate the peculiarities of the immigration process in Ukraine and identify common problems associated with the integration of migrants into Ukrainian society. The lack of statistical data causes some obstacles to immigrant integration research in Ukraine.

The aim of this chapter is to present the integration policy and practices provided at a national macro level. The most significant challenges of migrants' integration into the Ukrainian society require solving via social, cultural, economic and legal structures. Moreover, Ukraine's immigration policy should be improved and integrated into EU standards.

This chapter offers a survey of education transformations in the East Slavic countries, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, in the context of globalization and Europeanization. It gives first an overview of the common USSR background, followed by a description of education developments in these countries after gaining independence in 1991. It states that the present development of the national education systems is under the influence of powerful globalization and Europeanization trends. The national features of education systems in these countries are described. Global and European benchmarks for the development of education influencing educational reforms in these countries have also been identified. The author concludes that the development of education in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine combines national priorities and the countries’ need for integration into the European and global spaces. The research would be of interest worldwide in the aspect of the East Slavic region’s education transformations under common challenges.

Purpose: Evaluation of the reform of public policy of digital economy taxation in Ukraine under conditions of military threats.

Need of the Study: The global digital transformation of the economy gives the IT sector priority positions in shaping public policy goals. The world community is searching for optimal models of digital business taxation, which can enhance its global investment attractiveness. In 2021, Ukraine introduced new tax rules on digital services; however, the war launched on 24 February 2022 made irreversible changes for businesses. The Ukrainian government started a new special tax regime, whose impact on the business environment needs to be thoroughly studied.

Methodology: This research is based on the content analysis of the legal framework of state policy on taxation of digital economy services.

Findings: The authors found that the reforms in the taxation of digital economy services carried out in Ukraine are designed to create incentives for attracting foreign IT companies and can create an effective tax competitive advantage for our country. At the same time, the special facilitated tax regime for the period of martial law in Ukraine creates a certain buffer in counteracting the threatening economic consequences of the war in Ukraine.

Practical Implications: The study summarises major taxation amendments and special conditions under martial law in Ukraine that affect the development of the digital economy, which allows for assessing the consequences for the business environment in the national IT sector.

Russia's attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, marked a very historic turning point in European security architecture. With enlarged Western aid in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, Ukraine could have overcome somehow the crisis, yet many of its cities and infrastructure were largely destroyed and one-quarter of its citizens are now refugees and displaced. What is even more serious is that it remains unclear if and how a diplomatic solution could emerge between the parties. Russia's war against Ukraine is not an overnight event, it is a part of the story of the gradual escalation of Russian aggression on Ukraine since the beginning of the 2000s. Indeed, it is not just the result of the ideological or geopolitical competition between the West/European Union (EU) and Russia regarding their mutually exclusive or even antagonistic integration policies in the shared neighborhood. It is a more dynamic process including the agency of Ukraine with all aspects of its domestic politics and societal features, ideology, the role of energy, business links as well as the impact of regional and global dimensions. This chapter aims to overview the interlinked relationship between the EU, Ukraine, and Russia in a triadic manner within key aspects including ideology, geopolitics, energy, and integration projects and by specifically focusing on the underlying factors that have triggered the emergence of the Russia–Ukraine war of 2022 and further implications for the EU politics.

Special education today in the Ukraine is dramatically different than its early origins which stressed communal guardianship for persons with disabilities to its current movement to inclusive education. The journey to inclusive education was inconsistent due to a variety of elements such as the collapse of the Russian Monarchy, a series of different governments and social-political structures, World War II and membership in the USSR which stressed a unification of the education system. However, special education professionals who worked at the Special Education Pedagogy Institute of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences continued to research and develop a philosophical instructional framework to educate students with disabilities that includes theoretical and practical aspects of inclusive education. This chapter provides a detailed description of this framework as well as prevalence and school placements aspects, classification and assessment parameters, and the impact of legislation for free public education. The chapter concludes with challenges to inclusive education such as attitude modification, infusing necessary teacher instructional strategies, and the incorporation of best practices from special education to regular education settings.