Rolling KKNU Training Events
Since April 2025, Karazin Kharkiv National University (KKNU) has been implementing a series of decentralized, rolling training events as a way to sustain training activities while ensuring participant safety and accessibility under unstable conditions. Sessions have been held in both Lviv and Kharkiv, targeting early-career researchers, including PhD students, university graduates, and war veterans with backgrounds in biology re-entering the scientific workforce.
The rolling format allowed for individualized support and continuity of engagement at times when centralized events were not feasible. Participants have included researchers from diverse backgrounds and institutions, such as Anastasiia Zabolotnia (private sector, Ternopil), Olga Komarnytska and Solomyia Dyka (Lviv National University), Andrii Tupikov (independent), Marta Kulyk (Lviv National University), and several trainees from Kharkiv National University, including Mykhailo Pereverzev, Oleksandr Surma, Mariia Sidorova, Serhii Sidorovsky, and Georgii Turaziani.
Three structured in-person training events were conducted to reach broader audiences:
- A one-day training for biodiversity monitoring experts from the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center in Kyiv (9 April 2025, 7 participants);
- A hybrid workshop for entomologists from Natural Reserves and National Parks, hosted by the State Natural History Museum in Lviv (21–23 May 2025), with 15 in-person and over 50 online participants;
- A two-day training at Kyiv National University (31 May – 1 June 2025) involving six participants from the Department of Ecology, including staff and PhD students.
These mission-driven training efforts have been instrumental in maintaining Ukraine’s participation in biodiversity genomics and capacity building despite the ongoing conflict.
