Our Projects
LibMod runs several Ukraine-related projects, making the centre the largest Ukrainian initiative (by the number of projects, areas of intervention and human resources involved) by a German non-profit organization.
I Ukraine verstehen (Understanding Ukraine)
Our website is a unique online resource for analysis, interviews and background reports about Ukraine, its relations with Germany and the EU, ranging from politics and economics to culture, from international relations to history. The site aims to raise awareness about Ukraine as an integral part of Europe among German-speaking audiences through multifaceted and impartial expertise. Moreover, Ukraine verstehen regularly hosts public discussions on Ukraine in German and English which are archived on the website.
II Ukraine in Europe: the parliamentary dimension
The project is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office from 2021 to 2022. It consists of two key components. First, it aims at deepening parliamentary dialogue between Ukraine and Germany and making it more substantial. Our key issues are the reintegration of Donbas and Crimea, as well as mutual Remembrance Culture in Germany and Ukraine. Also, we include French and Polish MPs and their staff to offer a broader perspective. Within this component, four closed-door meetings of MPs, their office staff and staff of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the German Bundestag, the Polish Sejm and the French National Assembly, as well as two public events will take place in 2021 and 2022. Strong expert input through separate expert meetings and policy papers will bring more substance to the parliamentary debates. Also part of the programme is a field trip to Ukraine for MPs and experts from outside Ukraine.
The second component focuses on enhancing the Verkhovna Rada’s capacity to promote the Green Deal agenda in Ukraine and support the implementation of necessary reforms. Issues like CO2 pricing, circular economy, renewable energy and waste management will be raised throughout the project. Expert briefings for MPs and their staffers, closed-door discussions, public round tables and the preparation of analytical reports and short papers are key activities of this component.
The project is being implemented in partnership with the East Europe Foundation (Kyiv).
List of publications and information about past events and future activities.
III Ukraine Insights
Ukraine Insights is a series of closed-door policy and expert meetings on Ukraine. It regularly brings together a select group of government officials, think-tank experts and practitioners based in Berlin. External experts are also invited on an ad-hoc basis. It provides an informal platform for in-depth discussion of developments in Ukraine, and for identifying future trends and exchanging views on EU and German policy options. We cover a broad range of issues, including Ukraine’s party politics, formal and informal decision-making, the reform process in various policy areas, and Ukraine’s relations with its international partners.
IV Expert discussions on long-term EU policy towards Ukraine
The project aims at offering input for the EU’s long-term policy towards Ukraine through a series of closed-door expert discussions. Experts from EU member states, but also from the US and Ukraine will be involved. Altogether, 5 expert meetings will take place between September 2021 and January 2022, with policy input papers written exclusively to offer in-depth expertise. The meetings will not only focus on future policy options but will also look critically at the array of current programs and approaches and suggest how (if) they can be improved and/or better implemented. This project is funded by the German Foreign Office.
V Remembrance Culture
This initiative aims at raising awareness about little-known chapters of Ukrainian history and German-Ukrainian relations in the historical perspective. In November 2020, we published a collection of essays titled „Understanding Ukraine. On the footsteps of terror and violence“. In autumn 2021, a second edition of the book will be published within the series “Ukrainian voices” by the ibidem publishing house.
Our remembrance project aims to reveal the largely unknown fate of the Jewish population in Ukraine during World War II. In autumn 2021, we hope to establish a memorial on the site of the 1941 Odesa massacre. This project is funded by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ).
Read more about this project (in German)
