Transfer technologies of municipal waste management to Ukraine within Quadruple Helix Model

Abstract

Waste management represents a challenge for local communities and power due to many reasons that requires a better understanding of its different stages. The ability of Ukraine to realize gains in Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) depends on its capacity to accept this knowledge and put to productive use through engineering, ensuring its effective use and organize and diffuse information among the stakeholders. The focus on MSWM is directly relating to both the environmental and socio-economic dimensions of sustainable development (SD) Country can borrow tools and technologies from outside, but they must tailor them accordingly to the local culture and knowledge-base if the new technologies are to be accepted and sustained.

The International Carpathian School that takes place for the fourth year in a row in Kosiv, Ivano-Frankivsk region, has been studying the Baltic States experience in municipal waste management. Education is highly sensitive to local culture and language. Educators should build the knowledge transfer based on what students already know and how they think, and what the students must be taught in their own language. As for the benefits of such activities, Carpathian Winter School, a fast-growing volunteer project in Kosiv Region, Ukraine, has a promising future. It is designed as a local non-formal educational centre for providing the EU best practices in the MSWM, sustainable land protection, climate change mitigation and saving natural resources. Quadruple Helix model accepted from Linnaeus University, Sweden was tailored to the local environment. Due to the low investment climate in Ukraine, it was getting to focus on Education for SD, rather than generating business innovations. The School educational activities were structured on cooperation with the EU universities that allowed Ukrainian students to be acquainted with the best practice in MSWM and open a door to the European labour market. Simultaneously, the School provided a prospect to local scientists in maintaining professional links with their foreign colleagues. Having a central geographical position in CEE, the Carpathian Winter School may have a good chance to become a placement for promoting students’ mobility and employability that is coherent with The Eastern Partnership (EaP) policy.