Opening Plenary:
Monday, 21 July 2025, 1:00-2:15
Ukraine, Poland and a Changing World Order: Dame Melinda Simmons in Conversation with Uilleam Blacker (UCL SSEES)
Dame Melinda Simmons is Ambassador Designate of the United Kingdom to Poland. From 2019-2023, she served as Ambassador to Ukraine, a period which coincided with the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Dame Melinda remained in Kyiv for most of that this time, playing a crucial and very public role in facilitating the UK’s support for Ukraine. Prior to her diplomatic work, Dame Melinda worked in the National Security Secretariat, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development. Her career has taken in diverse geographical contexts from Ukraine and Kosovo to South Sudan and Somalia, Yemen and Israel, bringing her into contact with major challenges, from the Eurozone crisis and the Arab Spring to Russia’s war against Ukraine. In this conversation, Dame Melinda will talk about her personal connections with east-central Europe, reflect on lessons her time in Ukraine, and look forward to the challenges facing Poland, Europe and the world at a time of crisis and war.
Mid-Week Plenary
Wednesday, 23 July 2025, 1:15-2:30
Twinning for Transformation: Global Partnerships and the Reconstruction of Ukraine
Dame Sally Mapstone, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews in Scotland
Mychailo Wynnyckyj, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Science and Education
Mykola Trofymenko, Rector of Mariupol State University
Charles Cormack, Cormack Consultancy Group
Chair: Matthias Neumann, University of East Anglia
This plenary roundtable brings together senior leaders and policymakers from Ukraine and the UK to examine how university partnerships are driving resilience, reform, and renewal in Ukrainian higher education. Framed around the UK–Ukraine Twinning Initiative, the discussion will explore how initial acts of solidarity are evolving into sustainable, strategic collaborations that support institutional development, internationalisation, and the broader reconstruction of post-war Ukraine.
Dame Sally Mapstone FRSE is the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, a position she took up in 2016. Professor Mapstone is President of Universities UK for the period 2023-25. At a national and international level, Professor Mapstone has also served as the Convener of Universities Scotland, Vice-Chair of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, and as Chair of the International Advisory Board for the University of Helsinki. She is also currently the Chair of the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) board and a trustee of the Europaeum. Before St Andrews, Dame Sally’s career was spent at the University of Oxford, where she was latterly Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education in the University, and Professor of Older Scots Literature in its Faculty of English, as well as a Fellow of St Hilda’s College.
Mykola Trofymenko is the Rector of Mariupol State University. He also holds key leadership positions, including Deputy Chair of the Union of Rectors of Ukraine, Member of the Mariupol City Council, and Member of the European Universities Association Task Force for Ukraine. Additionally, he contributes to the Council of the Foundation of the President of Ukraine for Support of Education, Culture, and Sports and is a Board Member of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Beyond academia, he has been actively engaged in governmental and policy-making activities, serving as an Adviser to the Head of Donetsk Regional State Administration and Chairman of the Deputy Commission on Education, Culture, Youth, Sports, and Tourism in the Mariupol City Council.
Charles Cormack is the founder of Cormack Consultancy Group a specialist Higher Education consultancy working with universities on the development of strategic international projects. The company has offices in UK, US, Australia, India, Romania and Lithuania as well representation in a number of other markets. He has worked in Central and Eastern Europe for the past 25 years and initiated the Ukraine Twinning scheme within a couple of weeks of the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Charles is in the council of Mariupol State University, a Trustee of Goodenough College and received an honorary doctorate from Bishop Grosseteste University for the work he has done in developing internationalisation within Higher Education
Mychailo Wynnyckyj is currently Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Education and Science with responsibility for higher education. Prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion, he held various appointments at Ukraine’s National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” (Sociology Dep’t and Business School), including Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, and a cross-appointment to the Business School of Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. From 2019 to 2022 he served as Head of the Secretariat of Ukraine’s National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance, and prior to that as Advisor to three of Ukraine’s Ministers of Education (2015-2019). Originally from Canada, Mychailo has lived permanently in Kyiv for over two decades. He was awarded a PhD in 2004 from the University of Cambridge (U.K.).
Closing Plenary
Friday, 25 July 2025, 2:45-4:00
A Permanent Cold War: Great Power Rivalries, and the Future of the International Order
Sergey Radchenko
Chair: David Milne (University of East Anglia)
Sergey Radchenko is the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has written extensively on the Cold War, nuclear history, and on Russian and Chinese foreign and security policies. His books include To Run the World: the Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power (Cambridge UP, 2024), Two Suns in the Heavens: the Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy (Wilson Center Press & Stanford UP, 2009), and Unwanted Visionaries: the Soviet Failure in Asia (Oxford UP, 2014). Professor Radchenko is a native of Sakhalin Island, Russia, was educated in the US, Hong Kong, and the UK, where he received his PhD in 2005 (LSE).
