Over the centuries, the relationship between the city and the university has been quite tense and even escalated into conflict. This is marked by the well-known formula “town and gown”. Our project lays the restart of this relationship – “town and gown 2.0”. It aims to create a kind of consortium between universities, city officials, and institutions from Ukraine and the Visegrad Group countries. The purpose of this consortium is to broadcast the experience of the V4 countries on cooperation between the city and the university for Ukrainian higher education institutions and city authorities.
The project focuses on the problem of synchronizing the strategic development of the city and the university. Particular attention will be paid to broadcasting the positive experience of the Visegrad Group countries, which is represented by the participating partners. The main focus of the project will be on issues: implementing the idea of an academic city by developing the city’s infrastructure for comfortable student learning and the functioning of universities; transformation of the city into an innovation space in which scientific projects are developed and innovations are created by creative youth and scientists; creation of new institutions that embody the interaction of the city and the university and which are aimed at mutual development (technology parks, innovation centers, creative clusters); promotion of the city as an academic environment in order to attract creative people to study and conduct research; cooperation between the city and the university to transform the city into a safe living environment for social, economic and cultural development. A separate issue on which the project focuses is the connection between the city and the university in order to influence the economic, social, and cultural development of the Volyn region, which historically covers the entire territory from which the Ukrainian partners of the project originated. This problem is relevant given the decentralization process in Ukraine. Broadcasting the positive experience of the V4 countries will effectively address these issues.