Navigating forcibly displaced learners’ pathways to higher education and beyond: Ukrainian students in French higher education
The IAU is pleased to announce that the article Navigating forcibly displaced learners’ pathways to higher education and beyond: Ukrainian students in French higher education has recently been published with Open Access by Springer Nature in Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education Research. This publication, written by Yasar Kondakci, Sevgi Kaya Kasikci, Giorgio Marinoni, and Kateryna Nakvatska, was born on the initiative of Kateryna during her internship working with Giorgio on higher education internationalization at the IAU in 2024.
The authors meeting in Ankara, Türkiye in August 2024.
The project took shape when Kateryna proposed a research study focused on the experiences of Ukrainian students in French higher education institutions. A partnership was established via the ENIS Network with Professor Yasar Kondakci and Dr. Sevgi Kaya Kasikci at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Türkiye. With guidance from Giorgio, Yasar, and Sevgi, Kateryna conducted interviews with Ukrainian students, connecting with participants through student networks and one-on-one outreach efforts. The research aimed to explore the unique challenges and opportunities encountered by forcibly displaced learners as they accessed and navigated higher education in France.
Once the qualitative data was collected, the partnership was further strengthened during a visit to Ankara, where Giorgio and Kateryna worked alongside their Turkish counterparts to analyse the data and plan the article structure. The collaboration combined IAU’s global perspective on higher education internationalization with METU’s rigorous qualitative research methods.
By 2025, the team, began drafting the article. Each author contributed a distinct perspective, resulting in a comprehensive examination of the topic. The article underwent peer review and was published in 2026 with Open Access, making its findings freely available to a global audience.
This publication demonstrates the IAU’s role in fostering international collaboration to address critical challenges in higher education, such as supporting forcibly displaced learners. Supported by networks like the ENIS, the project highlights how IAU initiatives can evolve into impactful global research. The publication moreover represents the evolution of an internship project into a peer-reviewed contribution to the field.
