On 27 December, 2011, under support of Zaporozhia Regional State Administration and Zaporizhia Regional Council the EU/UNDP Project "Community Based Approach to Local Development - II" and Zaporizhia National University held a round table discussion on the topic "Sustainable Local Development: methodology and social practice". The main subject of the round table was the introduction of the course "Sustainable Local Development "which should provide a set of theoretical, methodological and practical information in one tutorial for operating officials of the executive authorities, local self-government and for students who after graduation plan to return to villages and develop their small home.

The round table was attended by the first pro-rector, acting Rector of ZNU Oleksandr Grygorovych Bondar, the university management, project coordinators in Zaporozhia region Oleksandr Volodymyrovych Riaby and Gennadiy Mykolayovych Ustimov, managers of departments and students of the university.

As the first pro-rector, acting Rector of ZNU Oleksandr Bondar said: "... Zaporizhzhya National University has extensive academic and theoretical basis for teaching the principles of sustainable development, but the practical aspect that the Project can provide was missed. That`s why Zaporizhia National University is interested in cooperation with the EU/UNDP Project "Community Based Approach to Local Development - II".

The concept of a studying course was presented to the participants of the round table, which will have two main aspects of development and dissemination of knowledge:

• Development and delivering of seminars, trainings (management aspects of the Project)
• Support of research work for optimization of energy use at the local level (energy-efficient aspects of the Project).

Widespread discussion and numerous questions of the scientists were caused by the speeches of the Head of Chapayevsky rural council Guzenko Mykola Ivanovych and the Head of the community organization "Chapaevsky Citizens' Association” Perebiynis Lidiya Mykolaivna. Since rural areas are the main recipients of the EU/UNDP Project, researchers were surprised to find out about the real (practical) experience of the community in v. Chapayevka of organization of people, formation of the system of leadership in the area, accumulating funds on their own initiative, work with the executive and local self-government authorities.

The result of the meeting were agreements of the parties about temporal and methodological aspects of development and implementation of the course "Sustainable Local Development: methodology and social practice" in ZNU during the academic year.