Currently in the EU and other countries there is a large group of Ukrainian professionals in digital, innovation, cluster and industrial development. There are also different groups of foreing professionals supporting Ukraine in mentioned sectors. These are the key areas in the Industry4Ukraine platform strategy. The “Ambassadors of Industry4Ukraine” initiative is proposed for all these groups in order to increase the cooperation level of Ukrainian participants in these sectors with European and global programs of assistance to Ukraine. This document provides the main provisions of this initiative.
Target groups that form a network of ambassadors Industry4Ukraine
The following categories of our target groups can join the network:
- Ukrainian men and women, representing digital, innovation, cluster and industrial sectors who are temporarily abroad and local diasporas representatives working in these sectors, who are trying to help Ukrainian enterprises, scientists and universities in wartime;
- other countries citizens, professionals in these sectors, representatives of business and European public institutions, whose activities already have or may have a permanent focus of assistance to Ukraine;
- representatives of marketing, advertising, PR sectors ready to provide their services and resources to promote the “Ambassadors of Industry4Ukraine” initiative.
The main goals of the “Ambassadors of Industry4Ukraine” network
The initiative goals are as follows
- Integration of Ukrainian SMEs and developers into existing EU projects
- Financial and other assistance from existing EU projects and their participants for support of Ukrainian developers and industrial SMEs.
- Promotion of Ukrainian industry representatives and high-tech in events in the EU and worldwide
- Promotion of existing Industry4Ukraine platform initiatives, Ukrainian Cluster Alliance and our projects among European institutions and professional communities.
- Joint development and lobbying of new initiatives helping to Ukrainian industrial and high-tech communities at the level of the European Commission and relevant institutions in the EU member states.
Focus of the initiative
The “Ambassadors of Industry4Ukraine” initiative aims to provide priority support to Ukrainian sectors and enterprises directly affected by Russia’s aggression – sectors and enterprises that make the main contribution to Ukraine’s GDP and post-war sustainable economic development depends on them. The essence of the initiative is not only to integrate into European programs, institutions or our network of researchers / developers alone regardless of Ukrainian SMEs, but on the contrary, this initiative should be a tool to help sustainable development of enterprises and Ukrainian industries, with their better intergation into EU value chains.
Accordingly, the main focus and support of the network will be granted to initiatives focused on helping the industrial and high-tech sectors which are the basis of the modern Ukrainian economy.
The key tasks of ambassadors
The Industry4Ukraine platform already has a number of developments and projects in Industry 4.0, including digital, innovation and green development, with relevant committees operating. Since the start of the war the emphasis has shifted to the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance, which has fully integrated the platform’s cluster committee functioning since 2020. Accordingly, the network’s immediate tasks are as follows:
- be the part of think tank proposing the strategic initiatives in industrial innovative and high tech development for Ukraine, with better integration into EU programs (see 1st analysis from A. Yurchak)
- communication of UCA / Industry4Ukraine initiatives in your environment also with better targeting and involvement of European participants (for example, dissemination of reports about the first clusters meetings, or digests in English, etc.).
- expanding the network of contacts and potential partners from the EU in accordance with the priorities and needs of Ukrainian clusters and developers (matching & connecting).
- organization and conduct of special meetings – events to support our community (for example, organizing special online events in your environment with invitation of 2-3 speakers from our side).
- generation and proposal of new initiatives for UCA (for example, there is a number of proposals on how to integrate the European DIH network for supporting Ukraine).
- active assistance and promotion of existing support instruments at the EU level, in particular the instrument assisting Ukraine on the ECCP platform, as well as those created at the state Entrepreneurship and Export promotion office.
Other proposals for action plans are welcomed.
How to join to the network
The network can be joined by professionals who are temporarily or permanently abroad, meet the target categories outlined above, and seek helping Ukrainian communities.
Participation in the network is voluntary. At the same time, this initiative does not prohibit network volunteers from transferring certain projects to the level of grant funding. It is also likely that the activities of ambassadors for the benefit of Ukraine’s innovative economy will be funded through individual European projects.
Joining the network is done through filling out the form.
Coordination and action plan
On the Industry4Ukraine platform the main coordinator is Alexandre Yurchak, the main coordinator of Industry4Ukraine, and the Head of Ukrainian CLuster Alliance (UCA).
Well-known Ukrainian activists in Industry4Ukraine who were the first to join the network of ambassadors:
- Olga Trofymova, Director of Export & Internationalization program in Ukrainian Cluster Allaince (Austria – Ukraine)
- Anastasia Konstantinova, one of the best experts on EU cluster development (Netherlands)
- Volodymyr Matiushko, key expert of committee ‘Digitalization of manufacturing’ Industry 4.0 (now in Germany)
- Volodymyr Nochvai, Head of Innovation at Kyiv Academic University (now in France)
- Halyna Tabunshyk, Work4CE international project manager, Zaporizhzhya polytechnic (now in Belgium).
- Victoria Tarasyuk, Institute of Water and Energy Management (migrated to Germany)
- Ivan Kulchytsky, member of the Innovation and smart specialization committee of Industry4Ukraine, president of the Agency of European Innovations (Ukraine)
- Andriy Hnap, Head of the Sustainable Industry Committee, CEO Waste Ukraine Analytics, (Ukraine)
The network holds regular meetings of its members and has its own group on Whatsap.
Questions or more information, – please contact to info@industry4ukraine.net.