Kyiv-based think tank researching EU Eastern Partnership policy, governance in contested states, and post-Soviet political transformation.
The Ukrainian Institute for Public Policy is a Kyiv-based civic think tank that analyzes post-Soviet political transformation, EU Eastern Partnership relations, and governance challenges in fragile or contested state environments. Their research examines how EU external action policies function in practice in countries with weak institutions, disputed territories, or challenged sovereignty — precisely the kind of on-the-ground analysis that cannot be replicated from Brussels or Berlin. As a Ukrainian organization, they bring direct insider access to policymakers, civil society actors, and political dynamics in one of the EU's most strategically consequential neighborhood countries. Their outputs feed into evidence-based EU policy recommendations and provide empirical grounding for comparative governance research across Eastern European contexts.
EU-STRAT (2016–2019) was explicitly structured around an inside-out strategic assessment of EU influence across Eastern Partnership countries, where this organization's Ukrainian perspective was integral to the research design.
EU-LISTCO (2018–2021) examined EU external action in states defined by limited institutional capacity and contested sovereignty, themes where the organization contributes direct field-level case study material.
Both EU-STRAT and EU-LISTCO sit within the broader research frame of how the EU projects influence, norms, and support into its eastern neighborhood.
As a Ukrainian civic organization operating since at least 2016, their participation in both H2020 projects reflects an institutional role as a practitioner-researcher bridging academic analysis and civil society reality in a transitional democracy.
With only two projects spanning 2016–2021, the dataset is limited, but a discernible thematic shift is present. Their entry into H2020 through EU-STRAT centered on the specific EU–Eastern Partnership relationship: strategic assessment, bilateral dynamics, and EU influence in a defined regional corridor. Their second project, EU-LISTCO, broadened that frame considerably — moving from regional analysis to comparative governance theory, focusing on the structural conditions of limited statehood and contested orders as categories that extend well beyond Eastern Europe. This suggests a gradual repositioning from regional area expert to comparative governance researcher with Eastern Europe as a primary case study rather than the sole subject.
They appear to be moving from narrowly regional Eastern Partnership analysis toward a broader comparative governance research identity, which would make them a stronger partner for any consortium examining EU external action, fragile states, or post-conflict institution-building beyond the post-Soviet space.
This organization has participated exclusively as a consortium partner across both projects, with no coordinator roles — a pattern consistent with think tanks that contribute specialized regional expertise rather than managing large research operations. Both projects involved substantial, multi-country consortia (22 unique partners across 17 countries combined for just two grants), indicating that they are comfortable operating within complex, diverse European research networks. Their value in a consortium is most likely as the Ukrainian or Eastern Partnership country voice — providing field access, local stakeholder networks, and empirical grounding that Western European partners depend on but cannot provide themselves.
Despite only two H2020 projects, they have accumulated 22 unique consortium partners across 17 countries — a notably broad footprint that signals strong integration into European political science and EU studies research networks. Their collaborator base almost certainly spans both Eastern and Western European institutions, reflecting the inherently comparative nature of Eastern Partnership research.
As one of the very few Ukrainian research organizations active in H2020, the Ukrainian Institute for Public Policy offers something structurally rare: embedded, practitioner-level expertise from inside a country that is simultaneously an EU neighborhood state, an Eastern Partnership member, and — after 2022 — a candidate for EU accession. This makes their analytical perspective on EU external policy not merely academic but operationally grounded in lived political reality. For any consortium studying EU enlargement dynamics, eastern neighborhood governance, or the limits of EU normative power, this organization brings credibility and access that no Western European institution can substitute.
