MSU Associate Professor helped launch Ukrainian studies and implement Estonia/Ukraine research project
Being part of the international academic community is very important to Ukrainian scholars, particularly to those working at Mariupol State University, since it helps both personal professional growth and development of Ukrainian studies abroad.
In November–December, Serhii Pakhomenko, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations Chair, completed his final visit to the Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki (Finland) as part of a two-month long internship. In 2025, MSU researcher received another research fellowship for him to be able to study what he described as a very ambiguous and debatable topic of decolonization policy in Ukraine.
The partner university provided the necessary resources for work and presentation of its findings. As early as in October Serhii Pakhomenko familiarized the international academic community with the preliminary results of his research at a conference, and in December, he presented them in more detail at a research seminar.
However, the internship became a good opportunity not only to work on his own research. The internship also boosted a more profound study of the Ukrainian issue by Finnish scholars. Months of discussions and talks were not in vain: University of Helsinki established Ukrainian studies, providing them with official status and with funding.
Informal activities were carried out for over a year and half by researchers from the Aleksanteri Institute. During my visits I joined them, suggested topics, provided consultations and personally moderated discussions. When I was in Ukraine, I participated online. Finally, when the studies developed into a fairly noticeable public academic field, Professor Katri Pynnöniemi got approval for creation of an official research network on Ukrainian studies. The network is supposed to involve other Finnish colleagues and to address various issues of Ukrainian studies related not only to the present events but to historical, linguistic and sociological issues as well,
— said Serhii Pakhomenko, MSU Associate Professor.
Another important result of international activities was publication of a collective journal concerned with Russian impact and with the war in Ukraine. The journal was published by Springer, the leading international academic publisher indexed in Scopus.
Serhii Pakhomenko not only published some of his own articles. He became one of the editors together with his Estonian colleagues. The project was initiated and organized by Vladimir Sazonov, Associate Professor of the University of Tartu and long-time friend and partner of Mariupol University.
To increase the academic ranking of the university, all the instructors of Political Science and International Relations Chair have contributed their articles to the journal.
Together with other editors, we started working on the journal two years ago. It was not easy since every article contributed had to be proofread and reviewed, because this publisher’s requirements are very strict. At the same time, it is necessary to edit your own articles after comments given by external peer reviewers. It took the finished journal about six months to be edited. I think it is high time for us in Ukraine to abandon our illusions and exaggerated expectations about how quickly and easily we can get our articles published in journals indexed in the international databases, such as Scopus or Web of Science. On the other hand, publications of the sort are of watershed importance if one aims to gain recognition in the West,
— said Serhii Pakhomenko, MSU Associate Professor.
.
