Ukrainian higher education in the time of armed conflict : perspectives of crisis management

Higher education of Ukraine did not stay immune to political and economic turbulence the country has been undergoing since 2014. As a result of the political turmoil, Ukrainian higher education suffered a massive decline in student population and a halt in the education process for some institutions. In the process of military actions in eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, 18 state universities, two private universities and 11 research institutions were evacuated. The educational infrastructure of Donetsk and Luhansk regions suffered major infrastructural, financial and organizational losses. Limited understanding of the impacts the armed conflict had on the higher education institutions in Ukraine guided this research. Therefore, the aim of the study is to identify how the Ukrainian higher education institutions have been impacted by and have been coping with the crisis. The study focuses attempts to elicit the impacts that disrupt the functions of the Ukrainian crisis-affected universities and crisis management practices that have been used by these institutions to cope with the crisis. This study used a qualitative research design. The researcher selected five conflict-affected higher education institutions as a research site using a purposive sampling technique. The participants of the research were sampled using the expert and snowball sampling techniques. The data was collected with the help of the qualitative semi-structured interviews and the secondary data analysis. The research findings revealed the armed conflict negatively impacted the universities’ human resources, educational and research infrastructure, organizational operations and institutional legitimacy. The institutional crisis management capacity has been undermined and delayed as a result of the lack of a national and university evacuation plans, inconsistent and weak communication efforts and untrained self-appointed crisis personnel. Additionally, the efforts of the crisis teams were subverted by the self-proclaimed Donetsk National Republic and Luhansk National Republic governing and security institutions