According to the University of Oxford’s Social Sciences Division news-post (8 November 2024) three new Interdisciplinary Hubs led by its academics are to launch this month, with the aim of catalysing interdisciplinary communities in their respective subject areas to strengthen their readiness to secure significant future research funding. One of them, the Oxford Ukraine Hub (OUH) will serve as an interdisciplinary network to connect the exceptional breadth and depth of expertise across multiple disciplines at Oxford with international researchers and practitioners working on, and interested in, issues related to Ukraine.
By placing Ukraine at the centre of scholarly enquiry and bringing together scholars from the social sciences and humanities, the OUH disrupts long-established epistemological hierarchies within Slavic and East European studies by fostering new collaborations across disciplines, departments, and institutions, including scholars in Ukraine.
Key outputs will include a workshop series, a podcast, and the development of an international and open access ‘Global Ukraine’ website.
The OUH also creates capacity for new interdisciplinary research opportunities, securing additional grants, leveraging policy impact, and broadening public engagement within the UK and beyond, which is critical given Ukraine’s ongoing struggle for independence.
The OUH, led by Dr Zbigniew Wojnowski (Oxford School of Global and Area Studies), has been awarded funding of £40,000 from the Social Sciences Division. It will bring together researchers from across the University of Oxford with external collaborators: forging new connections across disciplinary boundaries, facilitating interdisciplinary activities, and developing links with key, non-academic stakeholders.