USPS Alumni Programme

The Ukrainian School of Political Studies is, first of all, the Community, networking and a unity of differences. We are constantly emphasising this but have a feeling that we can do much more for the Community.

This is how the idea of the USPS Alumni Programme came up – a programme that brings together graduates of the School in different years and responds to their requests for good education and deepening interaction within the Community.

To introduce our alumni to the format and test it, we conducted four modules of the programme – seminars on literature, philosophy, economics and political theory.

• a closed format of seminars, takes several days and only for USPS Community;
• networking of alumni of the School from different years;
• professional discussions with participants and trainers on important topics.

Yevheniy Stasinevych was the first to start his literature course entitled “Books-explosions: societies through a mirror of bestsellers”.

As a part of the course, the group had a discussion about whether there is a common basis for those public demands that make books mega-popular and how accurately and subtly these variable demands are felt by literature of yesterday and today, of the world and Ukraine.

Next, we held a seminar on philosophy, conducted by Mykhailo Koltsov and called “Perception and mental models: how do we work with our sensations and turn them into a world-view?”.

In this course, the group turned to neurophysiology and philosophical materials that explore the nature of our sensations: how we see, hear, and feel ourselves and the world around us. And at the same time, they tried to reconstruct the way in which our consciousness forms mental models that become an integral part of our world view and ourselves.

Together with Schumpeter School of innovation, USPS held a seminar on economics, lead by Pavlo Sheremeta under the name “Ukrainian breakthrough: creative destruction and non-destructive creation”.

Productivity or innovation accounts for 85% of economic growth. Competitiveness of a nation and a company depends on their ability to innovate. Therefore, in this course, the group talked about Creative Destruction, fear, conflict and opposition caused by Creative Destruction, ways to overcoming them, the role of a state in stimulating Creative Destruction, social values that positively affect internal innovation, Blue Ocean Strategy of countries, cities, organisations and leaders.

Ivan Gomza’s course on political theory “Waiting for the four horsemen: social inequality and modern political processes” was the last of the first four seminars.

The group considered two classic social problems – social inequality and political violence, as a combined factor of modern anxiety. Combining the study of relevant events with experience of ancient Rome and early modern states, the group understood that social inequality and its accompanying processes find a temporary solution in the most violent forms – epidemics, wars and revolutions.

The first cycle of the programme’s seminars is over but we are planning to create more similar opportunities for alumni training, therefore, wait for updates. We will definitely send information about new courses to all alumni.