Photo: Mariia Yarova
In her doctoral dissertation, MSc Kateryna Suprun provides the first comprehensive evaluation of how the performance-based funding policy was implemented in Ukrainian higher education between 2020 and 2025. The model was introduced in 2020 to replace funding based on student numbers and negotiations with the ministry. Since then, successive governments have suspended and revived it amid Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine. Using policy process analysis and a mixed-methods design, Suprun’s study shows that the reform brought university budgets under public scrutiny, applied the same rules to all, and encouraged universities to look beyond student numbers. Yet the reform’s biggest ups and downs were driven by political shifts rather than flaws in its design, and bargaining and old attitudes did not disappear. The dissertation provides recommendations for Ukraine’s higher education sector, including greater financial autonomy for universities and safeguards against political manipulation. It also offers lessons for Europe on keeping higher education policies functional during prolonged crises.
The doctoral dissertation titled A System under Crisis: Performance-based Funding Policy Implementation in Ukrainian Higher Education by MSc Kateryna Suprun will be publicly examined in the Faculty of Management and Business at Tampere University on 6 November 2026. The dissertation is in the field of Administrative Sciences.
The Opponent will be Professor Anatoly Oleksiyenko from The Education University of Hong Kong, China. The Custos will be Professor Jussi Kivistö from the Faculty of Management and Business.