Kick-off meeting for the Booster4Resilience Project

The first online meeting was recently held, attended by the coordinator and the working group of the "Boost resilience towards climate-related extremes and external threats (Booster4Resilience)" project. This international educational initiative is being implemented on the basis of National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine (NUBiP of Ukraine) jointly with Wageningen University & Research (WUR), with the financial support of the European community EIT Water and the Poul Due Jensen Foundation.

The main goal of the project is to form a new generation of highly qualified leaders in the water sector capable of developing and implementing effective solutions in the context of global climate change and devastating external threats to critical infrastructure. For our university, participation in this initiative is an important step in the modernisation of higher education and the strengthening of international scientific cooperation. Our task is to integrate advanced European experience, provide Ukrainian students and researchers with access to unique modelling tools, and prepare real-life cases for the reliable restoration of our state's water management complex.

During the meeting, the team agreed on the general concept of the programme and approved the key dates. Intensive training for 120 participants will take place from 29 September to 30 October 2026. The hybrid format of the course will allow 50 participants to work directly in classrooms, while others will be able to join online.

The meeting participants also detailed the specifics of the four training modules:

• Module 1: Water Scarcity and Security (Mastering the methodology for a comprehensive analysis of climate extremes and applying modern tools for multi-criteria decision analysis and the European analytical framework DPSIR for the accurate assessment of environmental risks).
• Module 2: Digital Modelling of Crisis Scenarios (This block is dedicated to practical work with big data to forecast the spread of pollution in aquatic ecosystems and to model various crisis scenarios using the MARINA-Model tools and the RStudio environment).
• Module 3: Green Taxation and Finance (A financial and economic block that will reveal the mechanisms for ensuring the economic resilience of water management enterprises).
• Module 4: Practical Development of Real Investment Projects for Protected Infrastructure. (The final stage of the course, where theory transitions into practice, and where teams will work on their own projects for the protection and modernisation of critical infrastructure facilities, conducting detailed calculations of indicators).

Registration for the course will be open to master's students, postgraduate students, young scientists, as well as representatives of specialised enterprises and businesses seeking to improve their qualifications. Follow the official university website so as not to miss the start of registration and to become part of the team that is changing the future of Ukraine's water sector.