REPORT
2012-2014 INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ETHICS AND CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
Ukrainian Catholic University
REPORT 2012-2014
Launching the Project
IIECI Board
The project of establishing an International Institute for Ethics and Contemporary Issues (IIECI) aims at creating a new interdisciplinary constellation of internationally recognized scholars and experts in the field of ethics with a goal of becoming a resource center for excellent ethical research and discourse with the capacity to develop new models and patterns of development in social, political, business, educational and cultural life incorporating moral principles and values.
Within 2012 the preparatory phase the International Board of the Institute was created, which included distinguished scholars from USA/Spain, Germany, Poland, France/Canada, Lebanon, and Ukraine. The interdisciplinary IIECI Board includes experts in the fields of ethics, philosophical anthropology, theology, political sciences, sociology of religion, moral theology, history, and law.
The establishment of the Institute makes it possible to leverage and promote UCU training and form programs for the younger generation by preparing it for creative and responsible leadership in politics, law, business, education and research, social work, health care sector, public administration, international relations, communications in Ukraine and internationally. The Project was publically launched on March 1, 2013, with an inaugural conference of the newly established International Institute for Ethics and Contemporary Issues. The year of 2012 was a preparatory time, which focused on crystalizing the mission of the Institute, its start-up strategy, networking and fundraising. The necessity to secure some additional funding for the project was a reason for very conservative spending in this year while accumulating resources for 2013 and the following years’ activities.
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The IIECI Board consists of 8 members including: Professor Peter McCormick, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; Professor Czeslaw Porebski, Jagiellonian University in Poland; Professor Jose Casanova, Georgetown University, USA, Bishop Borys (Gudziak), Bishop of the Eparchy of Saint Volodymyr the Great in Paris for Ukrainian Greek Catholics in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg and Switzerland; President of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv, Ukraine; Edward Alam, Professor, Notre Dame University, Louaize, Lebanon; Aloys Buch, Dean, St. Lambert Interdiocesan, Major Seminary, Lantershofen, Germany; Oleh Turiy, Vice-Rector for Research, Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv; Ukraine, Andriy Kostiuk, Vice-President, Pavlenko & Partners Attorneys at Law, Lviv, Ukraine. At the time of its establishment, IIECI Board decided to meet twice a year to be able to support and monitor the activities of the Institute. There have already been four meetings of the Board: 1st IIECI Board Meeting – 3/01/2013; 2nd IIECI Board Meeting – 10/12/ 2013; 3rd IIECI Board Meeting – 3/15/2014; 4th IIECI Board Meeting – 10/09/2014.
2012-2014 іn review
Main Activities
Establishing International Ethics Network
In the first years of its activities, IIECI has focused on the following kinds of activities:
IIECI actively aims at involving and engaging itself in the creation of an Eastern European ethical reflection, especially among younger scholars and doctoral students interested in ethical matters. Thus, at the initiative of IIECI there was established a small working group to work out the concept and to prepare the launch of an ethical network in Eastern Europe. The group included scholars from Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, and France. The working group came up with the proposal of establishing the Central and Eastern European Ethics Network (CEEEN). Such an initiative was strongly supported by the IIECI Board.
• Conference activities (4 international conferences) • Developing IIECI Fellowship Program (4 IIECI researches fellows) • Establishing international ethical network • Publishing (3 books published and 2 forthcoming) • Developing IIECI research library (4,500 publications) • Summer Schools (3 summer schools conducted) • Non-degree Program (Good Governance program jointly with LvBS, ILM) • Teaching courses in Ethics (for the students of Doctoral Program, Lviv Business School, and the Institute for Leadership and Management) • Research projects
The Inaugural CEEEN Symposium Ethical and Political Values took place at Olomouc University, May 12-13, 2014. The
participants of the symposium came from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Ukraine, with one of the keynote speakers from France. The second CEEEN meeting is scheduled for May of 2015 at the Olomouc University. Eventually CEEEN aims at providing cooperation, training, and exchange for the graduate students and younger faculty members in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and especially in Ukraine in the field of philosophical ethics, which will prove to be of greatest service not just for the higher educational needs of the these countries but especially for their social and political needs as their interests converge more on the European Union in the future.
Developing IIECI Research Library Professor Peter McCormick donated to the Institute his personal academic library specialized on ethical matters, which includes philosophical, historical, literary, and theological books. The first part of the collection arrived to UCU in August of 2012 and the second remaining part was transferred to UCU in August of 2013. Thus, currently at the disposal of the students and researchers interested in the field of ethics there are 4,500 publications in predominantly English, German, and French languages. This collection in ethics is already becoming instrumental in gradually growing the Institute to a strong research magnet for both post-graduates and younger professional philosophers in Ukraine. IIECI Ethics Library was one of the prerequisites of the successful launch of the IIECI Fellowship Program in 2014.
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ETHICS AND CONTEMPORARY ISSUES Ukrainian Catholic University
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REPORT 2012-2014
Non-degree Program Developing IIECI Fellowship Program The Institute is gradually becoming an appealing place for doctoral students and young researchers from all over Ukraine. The Institute has launched a one-month-long Junior Research Fellowship in Ethics (JRFE) for young researchers working in the field of ethics. In the spring of 2014, the first two fellows of JRFP were selected: Kiril Azarkhin, Ph.D., Kyiv Taras Shevchenko State University and Maria Zakharchenko, Ph.D. Student at Kyiv Taras Shevchenko State University. In September 2014, there was selected a third fellow Mykola Kuzin, doctoral student from Kyiv who will spend onemonth researching at IIECI starting in mid-November.
Right after the Revolution of Dignity and in the spirit of the values manifested at the Maidan, a new three-month program for public managers from national and regional administrations entitled Good Governance was launched in April of 2014. The program aims at educating a new wave of public servants committed to the common good of the Ukrainian society and aiming at reforming the existing system of public governance in a competent and morally rooted way. The program was received with a great interest on the national level and the number of the applications we received was three times higher than the enrollment number we set for the program. In June 2014 we had our first 42 graduates of the program who are currently working at various places in the system of public governance and some of them for the civil society organizations. The Good Governance program is a joint project of three UCU institutions, namely, the Lviv Business School, the Institute for Leadership and Management, and the International Institute for Ethics and Contemporary Issues. The second Good Governance program starts in the last week of November 2014.
Along with JRFE, the Institute has started a Senior Research Fellowship in Ethics (SRFE) to invite distinguished Ukrainian and international scholars for a research fellowship. Professor Damian Fedoryka, a philosopher, ethicist and former President of Christendom College, USA, has become the first recipient of this fellowship and arrived to IIECI for the fall semester of 2014.
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2012-2014 Ń–n review
Conference Activities From the moment of its establishment, the Institute has made a strong emphasis on organizing international conferences in Ukraine and also outside of Ukraine. Thus, during 2013-2003 IIECI organized four international interdisciplinary conferences, which were focused on moral challenges and opportunities that we are currently facing in a globalized community. The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine and the Maidan have created a unique context and a need for a new reflection on the issues of human dignity, leadership, solidarity, responsibility, common good, peace-making, truth-telling, etc. The Institute is proud to play an important role in stimulating and leading such reflection on the international scale. The following IIECI conferences took place in 2013-2014: • International Conference “Ethics in the Global World: Reflections on Civic Virtues,” March 1, 2013, Lviv (Ukraine) • International Symposium “Philosophy, Theology and Ethics of the Other Today,” October 11, 2013, Paris (France). Here is a short video about the symposium. • International Conference “Reflections on Global Political Theory. With special reference to Caritas in Veritate,” March 13-14, 2014, Lviv (Ukraine). Here is a short video about the conference wherein people speak in Ukrainian, Russian and English. • International Conference “Politics, Ethics and Theology. Challenges for Ukraine and Europe,” October 9, 2014, Paris (France) The report on the most recent IIECI conference “Politics, Ethics and Theology: Challenges for Ukraine and Europe,” which took place in Paris can be found here: http://ucu.edu.ua/eng/news/3896/
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ETHICS AND CONTEMPORARY ISSUES Ukrainian Catholic University
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REPORT 2012-2014
Summer Schools In close cooperation with UCU Philosophy Department, the Institute co-organized three Summer Philosophy Schools, which attracted intelligent, energetic, and highly motivated and morally sensitive young people (predominantly graduate students) from all over Ukraine: • Summer Philosophy School Moral Foundation of Responsible Citizenship: Action, Fear, and Courage, July 10-20, 2012 • Summer Philosophy School Compassion, Forgiveness, Solidarity: Universal Virtues in the Globalized Era, June 30 – July 7, 2013 • Summer Philosophy School Forgiveness, Solidarity, Civic Responsibility: the Ukrainian Context, July 1 – 10, 2014 The main themes which we were exploring in depth with the participants were the issues of compassion, forgiveness, solidarity, courage, responsible citizenship, virtues, sacrifice, moral principles and values in the Ukrainian and the global context. About 80 Ukrainian students have participated in the summer schools organized by IIECI. They had seminars and discussions with the summer school faculty, who came from Poland, Czech, USA, Lebanon, and Ukraine.
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2012-2014 іn review
Research and Teaching Projects Understanding Public Ethics. The Institute in partnership with the Lviv City Hall and the European Commission (EuropeAid) started a project dealing with the issues of integrity, responsible citizenship, and anticorruption policies. The project was launched in 2013 and will last for 3 years. IIECI has committed itself to develop and teach the following two courses for the university students: Fundamentals of Integrity and Responsible Citizenship and Ethics and Public Health: Exploring Value-Based Motivation and Decision Making. The first course was already taught at UCU for advanced graduate and doctoral students in the spring semester of 2013. Within a framework of this project IIECI is also working on compiling a collection of essays in the field of public governance ethics. The Catholic University between Secularisation and Identity (CUSI). CUSI is a research project to provide some key insights into the situation of the Catholic university as regards confronting secularisation, and with a special interest in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. The international team of the project researchers (from Italy,
the Netherlands, Great Britain, Finland, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Ukraine) have elaborated their contributions into case studies, which will be published as a collection of essays at the end of 2014. IIECI has contributed a case study entitled Rethinking a University in the 21st Century: A Case Study about the Ukrainian Catholic University. Church and People: Disjunctions and Conjunctions in a Secular Age. The project seeks to develop responses to key difficulties and new opportunities for the Church in the present world. The project includes research groups from 16 European and North American countries. Each group has selected a specific research topic within the general project and is working collaboratively to produce a publication to be released in 2015. IIECI has established its research team which focuses on the modern life and lived experience of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), mostly in Ukraine but also in Europe and North America. The Project will be completed in 2015 with the publication of a collection of essays by the IIECI research group.
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ETHICS AND CONTEMPORARY ISSUES Ukrainian Catholic University
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REPORT 2012-2014
Publishing IIECI has published the following books: • 1st IIECI Collection of Essays. Ethics in the Global World: Reflections on Civic Virtues, UCU Press – 2014 (in English). • Clifford G. Christians. Media Ethics. Cases and Moral Reasoning (transl. in Ukrainian), UCU Press – 2014. [This was a joint project with UCU School of Journalism.] • Peter McCormick. Of Three Minds. Essays in Ethics: the Political, the Social, the Global, vol. 1, UCU Press – 2014 (in English). The second publication by Peter McCormick entitled In the Moment of Your Passage. Essays in Ethics: the Aesthetic, the Metaphysical, and the Interpretive will be published by the end of 2014.
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2012-2014 іn review
Teaching
IIECI Staff
IIECI faculty and fellows have taught courses in business ethics, ethics of non-for-profit sector, media ethics, and ethics and contemporary issues for the students of the Lviv Business School, the Institute for Leadership and Management, and UCU Doctoral School.
At present IIECI staff consists of four persons (two working full-time and two working part-time): Volodymyr Turchynovskyy, director, Oksana Kushnir, assistant to director and project manager, sr. Andrea Yakymets, researcher and lecturer, Viktor Poletko, junior researcher.
Future Plans In 2015, the Institute will host a series of seminars and an international conference, both in Kyiv, on the issues of reconciliation and peacemaking and the role of Christian values in these processes. IIECI will be co-organizing the second international seminar of the Central and Eastern European Ethics Network (CEEEN) in May, in the Czech Republic. It is planned to organize a Philosophy Summer School for Ukrainian students focused on Ethics of Memory and Reconciliation Process. In September 2015, IIECI will co-organize with the Notre Dame University in Louaize an international symposium focused on the role of Christian values in an intercultural dialog and social transformations in Lebanon. The Institute will work on launching its peer-review online journal Ethics and Contemporary Issues in 2015. The Institute will continue to actively invite leading international intellectuals for its conferences and seminars and will further develop its Research Fellowship programs. The Institute plans to organize a series of curriculum workshops with international experts aiming at conceptualizing its future graduate program curriculum with a major in ethics. IIECI plans to publish its 2nd collection of essays Global Political Theory. We are currently in the process of translating into Ukrainian essays in ethics and anthropology by Professor Damian Fedoryka from the United States, which will be published separately in 2015. The Institute will work on the completion of its research projects, which were started in 2013 and 2015, and will launch its new Reconciliation Project through a series of the academic events, as was already indicated above. IIECI will continue offering courses in ethics for students studying business management and non-profit organizations.
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ETHICS AND CONTEMPORARY ISSUES Ukrainian Catholic University
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The IIECI Board members Edward Alam Professor, Notre Dame University in Louaize, Lebanon
Peter McCormick Permanent Member L’Institut international de philosophie (Paris); Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Aloys Buch Dean, St. Lambert Interdiocesan, Major Seminary, Lantershofen, Germany
Czeslaw Porebski Professor, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland
José Casanova Professor, Department of Sociology, Georgetown University; Senior Fellow, Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, USA
Oleh Turiy Vice Rector for Program Development, Ukrainian Catholic University, Ukraine
Bishop Borys (Gudziak) Bishop of the Eparchy of Saint Volodymyr the Great in Paris for Ukrainian Greek Catholics in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg and Switzerland President, Ukrainian Catholic University
Volodymyr Turchynovskyy Director of IIECI, Ukrainian Catholic University, Ukraine
Andriy Kostiuk Vice-President, Pavlenko & Partners Attorneys at Law, Ukraine
Ukrainian Catholic University International Institute for Ethics and Contemporary Issues (IIECI) 17 Ilariona Sventsitskoho St. Lviv 79011 Tel.: (+38–032) 240–99–40 (ext. 2055) Fax: (+38–032) 240–99–56 E-mail: IIECI@ucu.edu.ua