Bridges for Ukraine: Institute for Global Prosperity brings together leading academics and business innovators from across Ukraine and the UK to discuss innovation for post-conflict regeneration

Eva Coulibaly-Willis

The Institute for Global Prosperity has brought the valuable perspectives of a number of leading academics and innovative enterprises from across Ukraine and the UK together in a timely and engaging roundtable discussion at the Bartlett.

“Recovery is not about returning to the "pre-war,”” Maksym Kotsiuba, the founder and head of Kotsiuba Architects, pointed out as he dialled in from Ukraine. “It means shaping new urban experiences, rebuilding relationships, and fostering new forms of collective care.” Kotsiuba is a small landscape architecture firm designing green public space for refuge and healing for its citizens, and has joined a number of other small and medium-sized businesses and influential thinkers that have begun collaborating under ‘Bridges for Ukraine.’

'Bridges for Ukraine' is a project by the Institute for Global Prosperity that highlights the key role of entrepreneurial partnerships in reconstructing a post-conflict Ukraine. The project promotes knowledge and skills exchange between thought leaders, emerging businesses and scalable financing mechanisms, with the shared goal of rebuilding a Ukraine that is fit for the challenges of our planet’s future.

At the roundtable event [on 8th May], thought leaders and business innovators shared perspectives on the role of citizens in rebuilding cities and neighbourhoods; how nature-based solutions and digitisation can shape regenerative and resilient design; and creating financing models that value of long-term resilience over short-term return. “Ukrainian civil society is not just the watchdog of rebuilding, it is also a sledgedog,” Orysia Lutsevych OBE, Head of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House, reminded the attendees. “So when Trump said that Ukraine has no cards to play to end the war with Russia, local community leaders responded – they are the most important card Zelenskyy has.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Ehab Sayed, the CEO of Biohm, a startup developing bio-based construction materials, pointed out that “achieving this requires new financing and governance models, not just technological innovation.” This is where collaboration between citizens, businesses and policymakers will be key – “financing is not just a constraint, but a design question.”

The event was the first in a series of collaborative outputs that include a forthcoming White Paper being published this summer with additional input from the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Svyrydenko and the Minister for Services, Small Businesses and Exports Gareth Thomas MP. 'Bridges for Ukraine’ will also feature at a number of other exciting international engagements with the IGP in the coming months.