The Architecture of Hope: Forging Ukraine`s Agency Through Wartime
The 2025 IDH Forum explores hope as both a personal and societal phenomenon. It focuses on ethics, politics, and theology of hope. Amidst war and ongoing Russian aggression, hope serves as a crucial bulwark against the aggressor's dehumanizing tactics and genocidal practices. Hope empowers Ukrainians to envision victory and shape a vision for a post-war future.
The Forum aims to create a platform for exploring how hope functions as both an emotional-moral foundation for individuals and a driving force in social and cultural processes, including the development of ethical infrastructure. It will promote innovative academic approaches to analyzing hope as a key factor in sustaining institutional and societal resilience during wartime and in shaping Ukraine's future vision.
The forum will address the following key issues:
- Hope as a catalyst for national resilience: Examining its role in Ukraine's resistance and social cohesion against threats to independence.
- Political subjectivity of Ukraine in the context of war: Formation of new political narratives and structures through the perspective of hope for the future.
- War and national identity: How war transforms the national identity and political values of Ukrainians and the role of hope in active political participation.
- Hope as a factor of international support: How does hope for a victorious and democratic future for Ukraine shape the global support of the international community?
- Hope in the context of post-war reconstruction: The importance of hope in rebuilding a country, its political institutions, and democratic development after the war.
The Forum will convene scholars and experts from diverse fields, including political science, sociology, philosophy, and theology, to conduct a comprehensive analysis of hope's role in social cohesion, civic participation, and political development. This interdisciplinary approach is essential for formulating effective strategies to support communities grappling with war-induced devastation and to envision post-war transformation strategies.
Building on the IHD Forums' legacy of nurturing young talent, the event will encourage student research and community-driven projects that investigate hope's practical applications and transformative potential.
Forum at a Glance
Participants
The Forum will convene scholars and experts from diverse fields including political science, sociology, philosophy, and theology to conduct a comprehensive analysis of hope's role in social cohesion, civic participation, and political development. This interdisciplinary approach is essential for formulating effective strategies to support communities grappling with war-induced devastation and to envision post-war transformation strategies.
IHD Series
The IHD Forum continues an annual international conference series with a broad theme entitled Integral Human Development. This series was inaugurated in 2019 by the International Institute for Ethics and Contemporary Issues (IIECI) and the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Ukrainian Catholic University.
Partners
IHD Forum 2025 is held by the Ukrainian Catholic University. The Forum is the result of the joint work of the Faculty of the Social Sciences, the Analytical Center of UCU, the International Institute for Ethics and Contemporary Issues, the Institute of Religion and Society, the Institute of Leadership and Management, the UCU Law School, the School of Journalism and Communications, the School of Public Management, the Sociology Program, the Ethics-Politics-Economy Program, and our international partner - Catholic University Partnership.
Program
The forum invites you to live panel discussions, online meetings, student presentations, roundtables, and expert discussions.
Schedule
Venue: online
EET 15:00 - 16:30
Panel Discussion I: Ethical Perspectives on Dignity and Agency in Times of War
Speakers:
Edward J. Alam, Professor in the Faculty of Humanities at Notre Dame University-Louiaze in Lebanon
Aloys Buch, Professor of Moral Theology, Dean, St. Lambert Interdiocesan, Major Seminary, Lantershofen, Germany
Peter McCormick, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a permanent member of the Institut International de Philosophie in Paris
Czesław Porębski, Professor Em. of Philosophy of Jagiellonian University, Krakow. Poland
Helen Alford, President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, OP. Dean of Social Sciences, Pontifical University of St Thomas (Angelicum), Rome, Italy
José Casanova, Professor Em. of Sociology, Senior Fellow of Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affair, Georgetown University, USA
Moderator: Nataliya Yakymets, Deputy Director for Research, Senior Lecturer at the Philosophy Department of UCU, Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs IIECI, Ukraine
EET 17:00 - 18:30
Panel Discussion II: Global Lessons and Local Perspectives on Hope and Agency: Navigating Post-War Healing and National Unity
Speakers:
Dr. Máté Botos, associate professor at Faculty Humanities and Social Sciences, Head of Department of Political Sciences at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Hungary
Martina Knežević, associate professor of Psychology at the Catholic University of Croatia
Zoran Turza, assistant professor at the Department of Theology at the Catholic University of Croatia
A. James McAdams, Scholl Professor of International Affairs, University of Notre Dame, USA
José Casanova, Professor Em. of Sociology, Senior Fellow of Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affair, Georgetown University, USA
Moderator: Oleh Melnychenko, Head of Projects and Programs at IIECI
EET 19:00 - 20:30
Panel Discussion III: Shaping Tomorrow’s Society in Wartime: Sources of Resilience and Aspiration to Renewal
Speakers:
Rory Finnin, Professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge, UK
Tetyana Hoggan-Kloubert, Professor at the Chair of Pedagogy with a focus on Adult Education, University of Augsburg, Germany
Iryna Starovoyt, Poet and Translator, Literary Scholar, Associate Professor at the Department of Cultural Studies at UCU
Clemens Sedmak, Director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame, USA
Moderator: Oksana Kulakovska, Executive director of the UCU Analytical Center
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