The Idea and Origins of the Project
The NGO “Ukrainian Association for Research in Women’s History” (UARWH) has launched an ambitious project — “Building a Global Digital Presence for Ukrainian Women’s History.”
This initiative emerged from our team’s participation in the “Accelerator for Scholarly Societies” program, part of the Science at Risk project, in the spring of 2026. The program is designed to support Ukrainian scholars in overcoming the challenges caused by the war by developing and strengthening the capacity of scholarly communities, civil society organizations, and professional associations of researchers, and by fostering international cooperation.
As part of the Accelerator, UARWH representatives took part in a two-week online training program in management, strategic planning, and communications. Following a competitive pitch among over fifty projects, the UARWH team — Iryna Savchenko, Oksana Kis, Olha Nikolaienko, Viktoriia Vlasova, and Nataliia Zalietok — was awarded one of five grants to carry out a comprehensive digital transformation of UARWH.
Why Does This Matter?
Since its founding in 2010, UARWH has remained the only professional platform in Ukraine for advancing women’s history. Despite significant scholarly achievements, the technical obsolescence of the existing website and the lack of English-language content had long limited the visibility of Ukrainian research internationally. Digitalization today is a means of amplifying the voice of Ukrainian scholarship and integrating our unique research expertise and knowledge into the global academic space.
Components of the Digitalization Project
The comprehensive digital transformation, set to be completed by mid-June 2026, encompasses four key areas:
1. Full website redesign: an overhaul of the portal womenhistory.org.ua with a modern interface, user-friendly features, and the creation of a fully functional English-language version.
2. Launch of a digital library: the creation of Ukraine’s first systematized open-access digital collection of scholarly works on Ukrainian women’s and gender history (in Ukrainian and other languages).
3. Social media presence: the launch of official UARWH pages on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for direct engagement with the academic community and public outreach.
4. International partnership: collaboration with the Association for Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS, USA) in building the digital library and co-hosting a closing webinar to share experiences in developing digital feminist resources.
Project Impact
The project will not only upgrade UARWH’s technical infrastructure but also strengthen the Association’s institutional capacity, enabling more active recruitment of new members, contributing to the advancement of research and teaching in women’s and gender history in Ukraine, and more effectively promoting knowledge of women’s past to a broader public.
“We are building an intellectual bridge connecting the Ukrainian academic community with the global scholarly mainstream and with our own society,” says project director Oksana Kis. “Without the Ukrainian women’s voice, the history of Europe will forever remain incomplete; without knowledge of women’s past, Ukrainians cannot fully understand themselves.”