Horizon Europe Office in Ukraine joined the international meeting ‘Global Ukrainians: Challenges and Opportunities’
On 17 July 2025, Kyiv hosted the international meeting ‘Global Ukrainians: Challenges and Opportunities’, a large-scale event that brought together Ukrainian leaders from around the world, representatives of government agencies, diplomatic missions, international organisations and civil society. The event became an open platform for discussing the challenges faced by Ukrainians abroad and identifying new opportunities for strengthening cooperation between the diaspora and Ukraine. The event was held in a hybrid format – with offline participation in Kyiv and online broadcasting, which ensured the involvement of an even wider range of participants from different countries.
The forum was attended by Ukrainian MPs, government officials, heads of institutions, representatives of international organisations, Ukrainian communities abroad, as well as activists, entrepreneurs and experts implementing significant initiatives in their countries.
The programme of the meeting was built around three key thematic blocks:
- ‘Global Ukrainians: Challenges and Opportunities for Interaction with the State’ – discussion of effective models of cooperation between Ukraine and the diaspora, mechanisms for involving Ukrainians from abroad in the process of rebuilding the state.
- ‘Ukrainian Women of the World: Those Who Stayed and Supported, and Those Who Returned and Created’ – stories of women’s leadership, social entrepreneurship and examples of resilience in the face of war.
- ‘Opportunities for Ukrainian Women in the Public and Business Sector’ – a discussion on new tools, support programmes, funding for initiatives and involvement of women in active community development.
In the third section, Igor Taranov, Head of Horizon Europe Office in Ukraine at the NRFU, joined the discussion. In his speech, he presented to the participants the wide range of opportunities offered by the Horizon Europe Programme for representatives of the public and business sectors, including participation in international projects, research consortia, start-up initiatives, and cross-sectoral cooperation. It was emphasised that the Programme is not only for researchers – it is also available to activists, entrepreneurs, innovators working to address current social and technological challenges.
The event aroused great interest among the participants and became an opportunity to establish new partnerships, share experiences and jointly find solutions to help overcome the challenges of war, migration, integration and state reconstruction.
The meeting was organised by the World Ukrainians Association and the International Staff for Assistance to Ukrainians, with the support of the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights and the Business Woman Club.
