The Erasmus+KA2 project “Journalism Education for Democracy in Ukraine” (DESTIN) enabled Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv to create and implement the Integrated Curriculum in Journalism and Social Communication. It consists of the Master’s Degree study programme in journalism and social communication (specialization: “Journalism”) at AMU and the research and educational programme “New Media and Communication Technologies” at IFNUL. The Integrated Curriculum involves training at both universities – the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Hence after completing the training, the students participating in the programme will be awarded two full-fledged diplomas.

The Ukrainian members of the working group on the development and implementation of the Integrated Curriculum included: Andrii Yatsenko, the Deputy Dean at the Faculty of Journalism (IFNUL), the representative of the DESTIN team at the University, and the educational and research programme guarantor; Natalia Gabor, the Head of the Department of New Media, the IFNUL team’s Project Leader; Yuliana Lavrysh, an Associate Professor at the Department of New Media, the IFNUL team’s Project Manager, the coordinator of the initiative.

The Polish members of the working group on the development and implementation of the Integrated Curriculum included: Andrzej Stelmach, the Dean at the Faculty of Political Sciences and Journalism (AMU); Szymon Ossowski, the Deputy Dean at the Faculty of Political Sciences and Journalism (AMU); Bartosz Hordecki, the representative of the DESTIN team from the Faculty of Political Sciences and Journalism (AMU) and the coordinator of the initiative. In the summer of 2021, the Ukrainian and Polish teams held a preliminary online consultation on perspectives of a joint master’s programme implementation. The work of the Ukrainian and Polish teams as regards the development of a dual-diploma programme included the following steps:

1. Designing a joint Master’s programme. In August 2021, the IFNUL team examined the design of the AMU Master’s programme, analysed the disciplines of the partner university and compared them with the list of courses of the IFNUL Master’s programme. From August to November 2021, work was underway to create the Integrated Curriculum for both universities. According to the study plan, the programme lasts 2 years (4 semesters). Its participants spend semesters 1 and 3 in Ukraine, and semesters 2 and 4 in Poland. The programme is both educational and research-focused, hence master’s students have to complete 120 credits. The educational-process requirements include: passing the Polish language exam by IFNUL students (not lower than B2 in the 2nd semester of study at AMU) – for this purpose, during the 1st semester at IFNUL, students shall study Polish intensively, and if necessary, an intensive language course can be arranged at AMU in the 2nd semester; equivalent command of the Ukrainian language not lower than B2 for AMU students; writing master’s papers separately in Ukrainian and Polish; and passing the master’s exam at AMU conducted by a joint board of representatives of the two universities (3 representatives of AMU and 1 representative of IFNUL). The programme was approved by the Rector of IFNUL and presented at the Academic Council of IFNUL on 24 November 2021. This enabled to include it in the list of MA programmes for the 2022 admission campaign at IFNUL.

2. Concluding a bilateral agreement between IFNUL and AMU on the implementation of the dual-diploma Master’s programme.

In January-February 2022, we launched long-term work on a bilateral agreement between the universities on the implementation of the programme. To draw up the text of the Agreement, the IFNUL team involved representatives of the International Office, in particular Serhyi Riznyk, the Vice-Rector for Research and Academic Affairs and International Cooperation at IFNUL and Iryna Ivanochko, the Head of the IFNUL Centre for Quality Assurance in Education. At AMU, the director of the Learning Support Centre, PhD Marek Sobczak, was consulted on the agreement. Due to the Russian Federation’s aggression in Ukraine, the process of approval and signing of the Agreement was postponed to July 2022. The signing itself took its place in an online meeting between IFNUL and AMU Rectors, professor Volodymyr Melnyk and professor Bogumiła Kaniewska. In the course of a constructive dialogue and basing on relentless openness to each other, we managed to resolve a number of challenges regarding document-related procedures: assistance in the organization of the process and its coverage in the main sections of the Agreement; the legal evaluation of the document; the joint review of the Polish, Ukrainian and English texts of the Agreement.

The greatest difficulty in drafting the text of the Agreement was to align the two educational systems – Ukrainian and Polish, each having its special requirements and characteristics.

It should be noted that the educational and research programme “New Media and Communication Technologies” is accredited by experts of the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance. Therefore the Agreement between universities needs to cover all potential aspects that the experts will take into account.

In June 2022, IFNUL launched a promotion campaign for the dual- diploma Master’s programme. The admission to it was planned from August to September 2022. However, the martial law has been extended in Ukraine until August 23, 2022, therefore the Ukrainian team anticipated that the enrollment campaign might involve a number of challenges. To promote the initiative, a special Facebook page and a relevant Telegram channel have been lanuched.

Also, for visibility reasons, an interview with the guarantor of the educational and research programme at IFNUL, the deputy dean at the Faculty of Journalism, was conducted for the student channel Franko TV. In addition, Andrii Yatsenko mentioned the programme in an interview for the website of the Academy of Journalism Teachers.

The programme has also been published on the Ivan Franko National University website. Also, a programme presentation was held for prospective students during the Faculty of Journalism open day on May 19, 2022, as well as during the School of Leadership: University Management 2.0 organized by IFNUL in cooperation with SoftServe and UCU Business School.

Some other tasks were accomplished before the end of the admission campaign. They included creating posters about the programme, publishing comments by the programme course lecturers, and sending information about the programme to official e-mails of IFNUL students.

As previously said, the idea of exchanging MA students in journalism and social communication between the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan and the Faculty of Journalism at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv was born in the course of cooperation among scholars from both Faculties within the framework of the EU project DESTIN.

During this initiative, for several years, we discussed ways to bring journalism education in Ukraine closer to journalism education in European countries, including Poland. During many exciting meetings, it became clear that the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism at AMU and the Faculty of Journalism at IFNUL were partners who could successfully develop cooperation in teaching and training students on journalism and social communication.

We hope that implementing the Integrated Curriculum will contribute to developing other forms of cooperation between our Faculties and Universities. Both units have significant potential to conduct attractive and pivotal media studies. In this context, collaborative research projects on Polish and Ukrainian media representations of key socio-political processes in our times seem particularly important.

Educational and research cooperation between the Faculty of Journalism at IFNUL and the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism at AMU fits perfectly into the program of Polish-Ukrainian dialogue. Its development is a prerequisite for authentic mutual understanding. Both nations can and should still do much work in this area. We are glad that our Faculties can participate in achieving this aim.

Yuliana Lavrysh,
Ivan Franko National University of Lviv

Bartosz Hordecki,
University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań