Ukrainian research joins the European programme

In June 2022 Ukraine was formally associated to Horizon Europe and to the Euratom research and training programme. In plain terms: a Ukrainian university, institute or company could apply for European research funding on the same terms as one in Germany or Portugal.

Alongside it came the support schemes for displaced researchers — fellowships, laboratory places, and the volunteer catalogue that matched academics who had left with institutions that had space for them.

Why research access is a long-run decision

Emergency aid addresses this year. Research association addresses the next twenty. It keeps Ukrainian scientists inside European networks, co-authoring, co-supervising and holding grants, which is how a research base survives a period when its own funding cannot.

The alternative — a generation of researchers dispersed with no institutional thread back — is how countries lose scientific capacity permanently. This was a decision made early and quietly, and it will still be paying out in 2040.