International academic mobility is one of the priority areas of activity of the Sumy National Agrarian University. Today, employees of our institution have the opportunity to undergo internships in the best institutions of higher education in the world. In a series of interviews, they talk about work challenges, experiences and differences in education systems.
Tetiana Shevchenko is a doctoral student of the Department of Marketing and Logistics, Faculty of Economics and Management of SNAU. About life and work in France.
- What is your path at SNAU?
- I am a doctoral researcher at the Department of Marketing and Logistics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Sumy National Agrarian University. Before that, I worked as a senior researcher at the Scientific Department, also I was the investigator of Ukrainian projects for young scientists and the coordinator of an international project on the circular economy. I taught the discipline “Organization of preparation of scientific papers” for Ukrainian and foreign PhD students.
- In which foreign university do you currently work? What disciplines do you teach? Or under which program are you undergoing an internship?
- I am currently working as an invited researcher at the Industrial Engineering Department of the CentraleSupélec Institute. This institute is a structural subdivision of the University of Paris-Saclay. This is such a large-scale multidisciplinary university in France that has united many institutes. Now Paris-Saclay University is called “French Silicon Valley”. In fact, it is one of the most ambitious projects in Europe. I work under the PAUSE program – a French grant program that provides financial support to researchers from different countries of the world who are at risk. Before receiving this grant, I worked as an invited professor of the department for three months. Now I don’t teach for students so that there is more time for research. Although in the spring French colleagues offered teaching as an additional workload.
- How did you get into a foreign higher education institution?
- I left Ukraine about two months after the beginning of the full scale war. Since the invasion, I have received letters from colleagues abroad. These were simply letters of support from scientists with whom I had done joint research before the war. The letters of some colleagues were very frank. They wrote that I should leave if I could, that they would help me with free housing and a contract. One colleague even wrote that he has a big house and would be happy to host my family and help me apply for a science program. I received a similar letter from my French colleagues. We worked closely together for the last two years before the war, and at that time we had several joint publications in foreign journals. There was even an educational internship at this university and a scientific seminar where we presented the results of our research. It was within the framework of an international project a year before the war.
- How did you adapt to the new environment and teaching requirements? What is difficult, and what is given easily, because in Ukraine it is a must have?
- It was not difficult to adapt, despite the fact that the language is different, exhausting research work, the child is constantly with you in Ukrainian online lessons. It was more difficult to overcome the gap with relatives and news from them. Regarding adaptation to the requirements at a French university. In principle, my work in France is no different from what I did in Sumy Agrarian University. I think that it was the experience of research and project work over the past three years at the Sumy National Agrarian University that helped me easily adapt to a new workplace.
- Communication with students and colleagues. What are the differences and commonalities?
- I can say about researchers working under the term contracts. Communication takes place at pre-planned meetings, any format. The meeting is planned in three to four weeks. Of course, the most interesting discussions take place offline, when at least a few scientists are present. In fact, the researcher who has been hired has a clear understanding of his plan and the expected scientific results. These results are recorded in the form of publications in targeted journals and conferences. Hence, when necessary, he arranges such meetings to discuss his research. With regard to communication with students, I had a French master student; I was his supervisor with the subsequent defense of his graduate work. Communication took place through mail and online\offline meetings. Meanwhile, the defense procedure and requirements for diplomas are very close to the Ukrainian ones.
- What new things do you plan to implement in SNAU?
- This is a difficult question. At the level of my little experience, it is possible that the research plan of a PhD student, which should be more meaningful in structure, could be interesting for our university. It may include expected deliverables at certain time intervals. In fact, this is what he should “report” to the scientific supervisor, for example, every three months of work. But the supervisor, for his part, must clearly write down these deliverables in the plan. I also really like the format of research working groups in French universities. These are groups based on scientific interests. One scientist can be a member of different research groups and be located at least on another continent. What does it give? A scientist has a research topic. He can organize a meeting at any time in a mixed format and discuss ideas with scientists with the same scientific interests. You can even apply the focus group method and quickly collect data for your research. You can gather a potential team of authors for your research, where the key role belongs to the initiator – you. But the main thing is the idea, its originality and practical value. In these working groups, this idea has every chance to be implemented and bring some benefit to society. Unfortunately, many ideas of Ukrainian innovators remain in the laboratory. Of course, we all understand that such working groups for scientific interests have been formed for years, so that it is now a scientific space. In Ukraine, there is also a similar format of work, but such groups are formed by teachers rather than scientists, and the scientific interests are quite different. This is explained by the fact that their main workload is teaching. They write articles on different topics, because they teach disciplines that are different and can change every year. Now Ukrainian scientists have access to European programs and the situation will change. It is already changing. I think that in three to five years we will have progressive research groups based on scientific interests, which will develop due to project activities. That is, part of the teachers in the universities will abandon the classical workload in the departments, or it will be minimal, as in the countries of Western Europe. In continuation of the answer to your question, what exactly to implement. If we take it more broadly, we need new projects to implement something new in universities according to European norms and standards. And here the current grant programs themselves dictate to us what exactly needs to be implemented based on current needs. You just need to open this program and find yours.
- Do you plan to return to Ukraine? Share at least minimal plans for the future.
- In fact, all my thoughts are in Ukraine and I go to Ukraine as far as opportunities and conditions allow. My child is studying at an online school in order to return and continue his studies in Ukraine. Now I am trying to find some format of cooperation with French colleagues that would provide more opportunities to stay in Sumy. We are currently negotiating with the French scientific institute of construction regarding scientific cooperation on the reconstruction of post-war territories. At the beginning of the summer, I presented to the working research group the plan for the next two studies as part of my research plan. One of them concerned the reconstruction of post-war Ukraine. I also showed French scientists photos from Mariupol and explained what happened to this city in the spring 2022, when it was simply destroyed by rockets from ships, planes, and artillery, and we could not do anything because we had no weapons. When I go to my parents through Bilopyllya and see these destroyed houses that are still smoking, I want to do something to help. These are exactly the studies in which I now see the meaning and therefore initiate them whenever possible. I also plan to continue researching circular economy metrics at the product level, an old favorite topic of mine. I just don’t have the right to leave it. This topic is gathering pace of discussion. By the way, recently there was such an interesting story. I received a letter from a French colleague who presented our joint research on circular economy metrics at a conference in Bordeaux. In his letter, he conveyed to me greetings from a Brazilian scientist who, as it turned out, had reviewed our article in JCP. He asked me if I know this scientist personally. I say no but I know her from scientific articles. This is the international scientific space, where each other is known for their scientific contribution. So, on my favorite topic, we have already developed a toolkit and plan to create a hybrid based on it, integrating another metric model, with further testing on a General Electric Healthcare medical device. I think we will talk about it with you. So there are a lot of plans, if only the war would end sooner.
