It is a pleasure to sum up the results of the nationwide competition of the student research papers in the field of "Sustainable Development and Community Participation", which was held in March - May 2012 on the initiative of the EU/UNDP Project "CBA to Local Development".
Students of the 3-6 courses of the High educational institutions that had made an independent study of one of the aspects of community development in Ukraine were invited to participate.
The competition committee received 43 research papers from students of the following universities: the Sumy State University, the Kherson State Agrarian University, the Cherkasy State Technological University, the Donetsk State University of Management, the Poltava Agrarian Academy, the Kharkiv National Municipal Academy, the Kyiv National Vadym Hetman Economic University, the Chernihiv State Technological University, the Zaporizhia National University, the Ternopil National Economic University (was not a partner of the CBA Project), the Mykolayiv State Agrarian University.
All received work were encrypted and transmitted to the jury which consisted of four teachers and the community development officer of the Project "CBA to Local Development".
The highest score of points was received by the paper on the subject "Attracting People for Restoring of the Community Infrastructure: What is the Impact?" by Jana Patuk, the student of the Chernihiv State Technological University. The second place was taken by the work "Project on Implementation of the Water Supply System at the Utility Company "Lad" of Svydivotska Village Council (within the Project "CBA to Local Development" framework) by Yulia Kulik, the student of the Cherkasy State Technological University. Among the top three winners also was the paper "The Impact of Participation in the Project "CBA to Local Development" on Social and Cultural Values of the Communities" by Yulia Shkurko from the Sumy State University. We extend our congratulations to the winners which will receive tablet PCs to assist them in further scientific work.
The jury also has defined the top 20 scientific papers whose authors will be invited to participate in the summer school "Sustainable Development and Community Participation" which will be held on 06 -10 August, 2012 in Yevpatoria *. The list of winners and also the final evaluation scores of their papers can be reviewed here.
The jury members shared their impressions of student research papers. "The overall impression about works is very positive. A large variety of topics, approaches and ideas was presented. If even the third part of young scientists proposed initiatives were used in practice it would be a great success and significant contribution to improvement of living standards of Ukrainian communities", - said Yuriy Petrushenko, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics at the Sumy State University.
The jury was particularly impressed how some authors were sincerely concerned about community development issues in Ukraine. "The impression is that the diversity of subjects, approaches, opinions and links to various sources is a positive indication of the authors` relevant knowledge and skills in analyzing of social processes at the local level. Most of them quite confidently orientate in the issues of community based approach to local development trying to make conclusions and recommendations. I think that this aspect should be expanded in the future facilitating the young people creative scientific understanding of current issues of community activities", - summarized Mr. Sadovenko, the Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor of Political Sciences of the Academy of Municipal Management.
"Students` research papers enlightened current regularities of economic, social, environmental threats to community development at the local and regional levels. Some research papers included practical proposals that could be implemented at the local level", - commented Oleksandr Kalinichenko, the Candidate of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor of Economics of Enterprises of the Poltava State Agrarian Academy.
"This competition has shown that besides interest in the problems of sustainable development the students also have deep understanding of the current problems of communities, the ability to combine community development issues with social, economic, cultural, environmental problems of the regions. We were pleasantly surprised by the fact that many students were familiar with the project activities, particularly in their research paper they used successful examples of communities that participated in the Project "CBA to Local Development" finding the ways of solving certain problems of the community, preparing business plans for implementation of the individual community development projects", – said Galina Lutsyshyn, the Candidate of Political Sciences, Assistant Professor of Political Sciences at the National University "Lviv Polytechnics".
"We were also amazed with the diversity of approaches applied to the scientific studies of sustainable community development phenomena in Ukraine and also with the high level of some student research papers", - said the Community Development Specialist Denys Poltavets.
The works have been evaluated based on the following criteria:
- Relevance of and compliance with the idea of the project (maximum 10 points)
- The scientific level of research: argumentation, thoroughness of analysis (maximum 25 points)
- Systematic and complete description of the topic (maximum 20 points)
- Soundness of conclusions and proposals, innovations (maximum 25 points)
- Possibilities of implementation and practical utility of proposals (maximum 15 points)
- Logic and intelligibility of presentation of materials, scientific style and compliance with academic requirements to paper design (maximum 5 points)
* Invited participants will be notified additionally and provided with detailed information about organization of the summer school.
