Resilience and digital transformation: Ukrainian universities in times of war

The digital technologies that support research and education (R&E) have been facing wartime challenges in Ukraine. Here, URAN Association—an EU4Digital: Connecting Research and Education Communities (EaPConnect) project partner—provides specialist services to the country’s R&E institutions, including Kherson Technical University (KNTU). The long collaboration between the two organisations has only grown stronger during the past two years, leading to new plans for growth.

The mission of URAN is to support innovative and contemporary education and science in Ukraine and ensure the country’s R&E institutions can collaborate in the international arena. The organisation provides universities and research institutions with access to network technologies, electronic research infrastructures, secure channels for the swift exchange of big scientific data, and digital services specifically designed for scientists and educators, including distance learning and the specialist global WiFi roaming service eduroam. After the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, educators and researchers required additional support in challenging circumstances and conditions; as a result, URAN’s workload increased significantly.

URAN’s regular task to ensure the functionality of the specialist national R&E internet network infrastructure needed extra effort amid rocket attacks and power outages. URAN has therefore been adapting this infrastructure, reducing energy-dependent nodes in the network architecture and shifting to fibre-optic connections for uninterrupted services even without electricity.

New needs in common

The war has also created new needs for URAN’s users. Some are common to all research and education institutions, such as the need for displaced students and staff to access university networks. In this case, the eduroam service provides such access, and URAN has connected ten more institutions to this service within the past two years.

Another critical requirement is to secure university and research data in the face of destruction of the physical IT infrastructure by enemy rockets or drones. To prevent data loss, URAN offers the option for institutions to migrate their IT infrastructure to the clouds of foreign providers—specifically to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure clouds, which have been providing their services free-of-charge since the war’s onset. In addition, by participating in collaborations with Ukrainian and international partners, such as the pan-European R&E networking association GÉANT and the Open Clouds for Research Environments (OCRE) project, URAN is helping to develop a mechanism for R&E institutions to obtain significant discounts on such cloud services in future.

Special assistance – the KNTU story

For some URAN user institutions, the war has created additional needs that require further special assistance. KNTU is one such institution.

When the southern city of Kherson found itself in the combat zone in the first days of the conflict, KNTU’s buildings were significantly damaged. The university shifted to remote operations. Then, within a few days, Kherson was occupied; evacuating people and assets became impossible. The first need then was to move the university’s information resources and systems to the cloud, with URAN’s help. Oleksandr Melnychenko, head of KNTU’s IT department recalls: “First and foremost, we were rescuing information that existed only in paper format. We scanned the originals daily and uploaded digital copies to the cloud. We did this until July 2022 when the university premises were taken over by the occupying military administration.”

The KNTU technical team transferred data during non-operational hours, allowing university classes to continue as scheduled. Once in the cloud, data was deleted from the Kherson-based computer system, which was then made inoperable so that occupiers could not use it. When the occupiers did seize KNTU and cut off power to its data centre, the users didn’t even notice, as critical digital services had already been swiftly restored in the cloud.

Gradually, KNTU evacuated to the western city of Khmelnytskyi, though some dedicated staff stayed in Kherson, and continued teaching. URAN specialists helped to quickly connect the new KNTU premises to the URAN network via fibre-optic channels. URAN also provided equipment for wired and wireless networks free of charge and added more over time, as the number of university premises in the new location increased—supporting remote working of the staff and students.

Oleksandr Melnychenko considers the swift restoration of the university’s full operation at the new location a truly significant achievement, and notes that not all institutions from the occupied territories managed to preserve and restore their information systems.

Strong collaboration, wider benefits

The relationship between KNTU and URAN was one such long collaboration. And its benefits have been not only to KNTU, but also to URAN and the wider population. For example, in the early days of the war, the university personnel helped to restore and maintain the local segment of the URAN network. Also, in occupied Kherson, when most residents lost access to the internet because mobile operators were shut down, KNTU deployed WiFi zones in university buildings using URAN-provided equipment and network. “People started gathering near the university buildings and dormitories to take advantage of the opportunity to finally communicate with their loved ones and find out the latest news,” Oleksandr Melnychenko recalls.

Achievements, challenges and the future

For URAN’s executive director, Yevhenii Preobrazhenskyi, the fact that the organisation even still exists is another significant achievement. “It functions and it not only sustains itself, but it also assists education and scientific institutions, particularly universities. In times of war, the most crucial objective is to save people, preserve knowledge and help disseminate it among our youth.” Why is this so remarkable? Well, the continued functionality of URAN’s network and services is ensured by just nine individuals based in Kyiv. Their increased workload as a result of the war has only highlighted the need for additional staff and funds in order to continue serving the country’s research and education community.

Despite the challenges of war, URAN and KNTU aspire to dream and plan for the future.

KNTU is prioritising IT development with a digitalisation plan based on the experiences of universities around the world. With limited resources available, Oleksandr Melnychenko aims to apply for grants and engage with partners to rebuild the information and communication infrastructure of the university in Kherson. “We are deepening cooperation with other universities and organisations, including URAN.”

Yevhenii Preobrazhenskyi is working on a new strategy for URAN’s sustainable development, maintaining a focus on integrating Ukrainian institutions into the European scientific and educational space.

Further information

This article is based on a longer story from EaPConnect project.