Nataliya Shakhovska hopes to develop strong connections with European institutions.Credit: Nataliya Shakhovska
One of Ukraine’s largest universities inaugurated its first female rector in May. Now, Nataliya Shakhovska is steering Lviv Polytechnic National University’s 35,000 students and 2,500 academic staff members through the fourth year of the Russian invasion, on top of her research on artificial intelligence.
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Shakhovska told Nature how she keeps going and how she’s trying to build up her university to be ‘the best in Europe’.
How do you feel about being the university’s first female rector?
This is incredible. It signals that leadership can and should reflect academic diversity and that the most important criterion is qualification, not gender. And it is a trend across Ukraine. In the past year, women have also won leadership elections at the Kyiv Aviation Institute and the Vasyl Stefanyk Carpathian National University in Ivano-Frankivsk.
In our society, mothers and women have strong roles. The war is a crisis and maybe there is a feeling that a woman can protect us.
You want your university to lead in Europe. How will you achieve that?
Yes, I believe in the transformative power of ambition. Moreover, Ukrainian universities have long been underestimated. Our intellectual resilience, especially in times of crisis, is extraordinary. In my mind, the best university is the one that is the best place for people. We’re not just talking about rankings but about the feeling that ‘I like to spend my time here, not only for work or education, but also because this is a good place for me’.
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