As you already know, Ukrainian University is launching a special educational program of professional training and retraining (improvement of professional skills) of young and promising politicians with presidential ambitions (see: http://ukrainianuniversity.org/президентська-програма). We aim not only to promote professional level of potential participants in presidential race, but also to prepare promising young politicians for possible participation in presidential elections in a long run. In connection with the announcement of recruitment for Ukrainian University Presidential Program, I want to share with you some thoughts on this.
Implementing the idea of systemic changes for Ukraine, in particular the concept we are working on, requires properly trained staff. That is why, before announcing the Presidential Program, we offered a number of training and retraining courses for specialists who could do a lot of work to implement individual projects. It is obvious that in the first place such improvement of professional skills is needed by Ukrainian scientific institutions researchers and Ukrainian universities faculty.
In these courses context, we came up with the idea of the Presidential Program. Today I can say that the roots of this program go back to the early 90s of last century. It was then that I turned my attention to an educated and popular at the time young politician, in whom I saw a promising presidential candidate, and had a conversation with him on this topic. It was not about the next elections (1994), but about at least a ten-year perspective. He refused my offer, and, as time has shown, it was even good that he refused: further political destiny took him far away from the People’s Movement of Ukraine, where he actually started as a politician. My colleagues also have experience of successful work with politicians who are among the top ten politicians in Ukraine. This experience is very instructive.
After a thorough reflection and discussion of Ukrainian nation-building and state-building lessons (see my article in Ukrainian: “Sovereign Ukraine: Experience and Prospects / Declaration of Ukraine’s State Sovereignty thirtieth anniversary” (his is the final article of my collection “Systemic changes — a perspective for Ukraine”. Washington, 2020. 393 p. In Ukrainian) .
The presidential program is a very expensive project, and even a high tuition fee will not cover the costs that this program will require. In this regard, we encourage active people in Ukraine and the diaspora to make contributions and donations. Under the US laws, sponsorships and donations to Ukrainian University and Leadership International Foundation are tax deductible. To make such contributions and donations right now, please follow the links: Ukrainian University and Leadership International Foundation.
Prof. Dr. Volodymyr Ivanenko,
Ukrainian University,
Leadership International Foundation
November 13, 2020
Email: president@ukrainianuniversity.org