The Loop welcomes its first contributor from Ukraine

Last week, our blog site, The Loop, published a piece by a colleague at Kyiv School of Economics. KSE is one of six Ukrainian institutions granted free ECPR membership after the Russian invasion.

The fascinating blog article, by Victoria Portnaya, reveals how in Russia, state-created educational ‘Olympiads’ inadvertently serve to spread dissident ideas, undermining the regime from within. Victoria told us:

The Loop was recommended by my teacher, and I have been reading it since I was a high school student dreaming of a career in political science. After I began to study at university, I got into the habit of browsing The Loop each day on the metro.

When it came to publishing my own research on The Loop, I was astonished how swift and stress-free the process was. What could have been tough turned out to be painless and pleasant!

Free membership initiative for Ukrainian institutions

At our 2022 General Conference in Innsbruck, ECPR Chair David Farrell announced the Executive Committee's decision to offer free membership to all Ukrainian institutions, following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

Since then, we are proud to have welcomed six Ukrainian institutions as our valued members, along with their vibrant academic communities:

• Dnipropetrovsk State University of Internal Affairs
• Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade
• Kharkiv University of Humanities – People’s Ukrainian Academy 
• Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
• Kyiv School of Economics
• Nizhyn Mykola Gogol State University

This initiative has not only granted scholars from these institutions access to the full range of benefits available through our membership, but also underscored our commitment to fostering a global community of researchers.