Kiel University (CAU) in Germany and Kherson State Agrarian and Economic University (KSAEU) in Ukraine work together to support students, strengthen teaching and develop academic exchange during the war. What began as emergency assistance in 2022 has grown into a partnership combining joint courses, scholarships and research cooperation.
How the cooperation began
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, CAU’s Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences funded two short-term scholarships for Ukrainian scholars who had fled the war. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy provided accommodation at Haus Weltclub. Prof. Dr. Kai Carstensen, then Dean of the Faculty, coordinated the scholarships.
One scholarship holder was Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tetiana Skibina from KSAEU, which had relocated from Kherson to Kropyvnytskyi. Together with Kai and Dr. Anna Titova, Head of CAU’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Statistics, she helped develop a project to support KSAEU’s students and teaching staff.
2022: emergency support for teaching and study
The first phase responded to the disruption caused by the invasion and KSAEU’s relocation. With laboratories and much of the university’s equipment remaining in Kherson, staff and students needed practical support to continue teaching and learning remotely.
From CAU’s Institute for Statistics and Econometrics (ISE), the project sent 70 laptops to KSAEU, helping equip a protected workspace for digital teaching. It funded 66 scholarships supporting students’ online studies and five visiting scholarships in Kiel. The visiting students received support for travel, accommodation and living costs, alongside help with documents and settling in. The project also supported online courses in KSAEU’s bachelor’s programmes in Public Administration and Management.
DAAD funded this phase from August to December 2022 through Ukraine digital: Ensuring academic success in times of crisis, with funds from the then German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Assoc. Prof. Dr. Viktoriia Krykunova, then Dean of KSAEU’s Faculty of Economics, served as the local co-head in Ukraine.
On 29 November 2022, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tetiana Skibina presented the project’s results at an international online conference on the situation of researchers and students during the war in Ukraine.
2023: a joint certificate programme
The second phase developed teaching cooperation through the digital Certificate in Quantitative Analysis for Business, Economics and Public Administration. Launched at KSAEU in autumn 2023 with 30 students, it combined KSAEU’s subject expertise with ISE’s statistical and econometric methods.
To earn the certificate, students were required to combine subject courses, such as State and Regional Management or State and Public Law, with methods courses, apply this knowledge in seminars and submit and defend an applied paper. The programme was designed to connect institutional knowledge with data analysis and evidence-based decision-making.
At a joint seminar on 21 and 22 December 2023, participants presented research on topics including stock-price forecasting, gender inequality and analysis using Google Trends.
DAAD’s Ukraine Digital support continued from January to December 2023 with BMBF funding. Co-financing from ISE, CAU’s Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences and the International Center helped support 30 scholarships per semester at KSAEU and two visiting scholarships in Kiel.
2024: learning and working together
The next phase brought students from both universities together in Applied Statistical Programming with R. The course combined programming and data analysis with joint empirical projects. Six KSAEU students arrived in Kiel on 16 June 2024, and mixed teams presented their final projects on 21 June. Topics included inflation, inequality and economic developments.
The 2024 plan also included an online summer school in Applied Statistics and Econometrics for KSAEU lecturers and researchers, focusing on statistical methods, R and digital teaching.
This phase received DAAD Ukraine Digital support with BMBF funds from January to December 2024, alongside co-financing from ISE, the Faculty and the International Center. Its scholarship provision comprised ten online-study scholarships per semester at KSAEU and one visiting scholarship in Kiel.
2025: further teaching cooperation
In March 2025, KSAEU reported that ten students had been selected to take the course Statistical Programming with R at CAU. The announced programme included lectures, practical classes and seminars on data analysis, with applications across economics, management, finance and public administration.
ACTI-K²: the current phase, 2025 to 2029
The Academic Cooperation and Teaching Initiative Kiel-Kherson (ACTI-K²) began on 1 July 2025. It builds on the earlier Kherson-Kiel cooperation through academic exchange, joint teaching, summer schools and professional development. Its activities bring together economics and business with agricultural and nutritional sciences.
ACTI-K² is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) through the German-Ukrainian University Network (DUHN), with support from the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR). The funding period runs until 30 June 2029.
Recent activities include Summer School 2026 and research internships at CAU. These provide practical opportunities for students and researchers while developing the partnership beyond its initial emergency response.