St John’s hosts reception for Ukrainian academic publishers
Ukrainian delegates were visiting Oxford as part of a high-level, five-day development programme organised and hosted by Oxford Brookes University, entitled University Press Publishing for Ukraine: Policy and Practice. The programme was designed to strengthen Ukraine’s academic publishing infrastructure and support its alignment with international publishing standards and best practices. The initiative was developed in response to the severe challenges facing scholarly publishing in Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion, including the misappropriation of Ukrainian intellectual property, the targeting of Mariupol University and others, and the destruction of the country’s primary printing facility, Faktor Druk.
St John’s was pleased to welcome 18 Ukrainian academic editors, publishers and policy makers for dinner in Hall, with our Head of House, Professor Lady Sue Black, presiding. The Ukrainian delegates were also joined for dinner by a group of students from the Oxford University’s Ukrainian Society. The former president of the Society and current DPhil candidate at St John’s, Yaroslava Bukhta, described the evening:
" We heard how, amid missile strikes, blackouts, and the many challenges war produces, Ukrainian academic institutions continue to commit to higher-quality research — and do so with remarkable determination. It matters that St John’s College, whose values emphasise excellence and integrity in research as well as community and mutual support, hosted those who work every day to build exactly these principles in Ukraine. " Yaroslava Bukhta, DPhil Candidate in Anthropology, St John's College.