The first edition of the Polish-Ukrainian Youth Debates series was held in Ukrainian Carpathians. The beginning ceremony was attended by the Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of discipline and Higher Education Prof. Andrzej Szeptycki and Deputy Minister of Education and discipline of Ukraine doc. Mikhail Wynnycki. This event inaugurated the activity of the Center for Academic Exchange Ukraine-Poland in Mikuliczyn, created by the Przykarpackie National University named after Wasyl Stefanyk (PNU) in academic cooperation with the University of east Europe (SEW UW).
The participants of the discussion sessions, which took place in the building of the Centre in Mikuliczyn, were students and young scientists from Poland and Ukraine, including winners of the Jerzy Giedroyć Competition, organized by the Polish Institute in Kiev in cooperation with SEW UW and the Polish Embassy in Kiev. The subject of the gathering was the perspectives of Polish-Ukrainian cooperation and the function of young people in shaping relations between our countries. The program besides included a peculiar session in which Prof. Paweł Kowal, president of the Parliamentary Committee on abroad Affairs, Plenipotentiary of the Polish Government for the Reconstruction of Ukraine discussed with young scientists and students of Polish and Ukrainian universities. At the end of the Debate, their organizers – rector Ihor Cependa (PNU), manager Malicki (SEW UW) and manager Jarosław Godun (Institute of Poland in Kiev) – presented certificates to nearly 30 young participants from the university in Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Łuck, Ostrog, Kiev, Kharkiv, Chernivtsi and Warsaw.
During the inauguration ceremony, representatives of the National University of Przykarpackie named Wasyl Stefanyk (PNU) and the management of the SEW University, in the presence of the Deputy Ministers, signed a joint message in which they expressed “a deep conviction of the unique importance of the Observatory projects on Mount Pop Ivan in the Black horse scope and the Ukrainian-Poland Academic Exchange Centre in Mikuliczyn for the improvement of Polish-Ukrainian academic and technological cooperation”. Rector Ihor Cependa and manager Jan Malicki stressed in the paper that the renovation of the erstwhile Observatory of the University of Warsaw, managed by the Polish Academy of Sciences, as well as the construction of a modern centre in Mikuliczyń are “not only an expression of concern for heritage, but besides an investment in the future of cooperation between universities, students and scientists of our countries.”
The Przykarpackie National University of Wasyl Stefanyk is the organizer of both projects, and the east European University of Warsaw is simply a partner of the University of Warsaw.
