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Irina Bondarevskaya, PhD, Associate Professor, neurographical coach.

Founder and Head of the Board in NGO “Center for Personal and Social Transformations”. She served as European Commission (2020, 2021) and Robert Bosch Stiftung (2019) expert for projects evaluation. Member of the Board of the 29th Research Committee in Political Psychology of International Political Science Association. Laureate of program PAUSE at University of Paris Nanterre (May 2022 – August 2022).

Founder and coordinator of the annual seminar “Political and economic self-constitution” (2013 – 2022) as well as editor of the seminar’s proceedings. Member of editorial boards of the journals: “Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology” (Italy, indexed in Scopus) – since 2015, “Bulletin of Postgraduate Education: Social and Behavioural Sciences” (Ukraine) – since 2018, “Art-Therapy Space” (Ukraine) – since 2020, “Bulletin of Alfred Nobel University: Pedagogy and Psychology” (Ukraine) – since 2022. 

Author and co-author of more than 90 scientific publications, among them a monograph “Gender identity of female managers” (2011) and scientific articles in the fields of social psychology, economic psychology, organizational psychology, gender psychology, media psychology, with special interest in social identity, citizenship identity, citizenship activity, citizenship education.

Professional activity. 

2022 – till now – University of Lausanne, Institute of Psychology, Laboratory of Social Psychology – research officer.

2018 – 2022 – University of Educational Management, National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, Department of Psychology of Management – Associate Professor.

2020 – till now – NGO “Center for Personal and Social Transformations” – Founder and Head of the Board.

2015 – 2020 – Institute for Social and Political Psychology, National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine – Senior Researcher.

2010 – 2013 – Dnipropetrovsk National O. Honchar University, Department of Social Psychology and Psychology of Management – Associate Professor, Vice-Dean in international cooperation.

2008 – 2010 – G.S. Kostyuk Institute of Psychology, NAES of Ukraine, Department of Organizational Psychology – research assistant.

2002 – 2008 – Taurida National V.I. Vernadsky University, Department of Foreign Languages – teacher. 

Expert work in international project groups:

  1. NCCR – on the move project “Attitudes towards migration and democracy in times of intertwined crises” – Senior Researcher (November 2022 – November 2023). 
  2. Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Network project (28 universities from 19 countries) “Citizenship education in the context of European values” – academic coordinator for University of Educational Management (October 2020 – October 2024).
  3. European Commission expert for Horizon-2020 & Horizon-Europe (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowships) projects evaluation (October – November 2020; November, 2021 – January, 2022).
  4. Robert Bosch Stiftung Jury Judge for 35 projects evaluation, Education on Europe program, (February 2019) with meeting 25 – 26 February 2019 in Stuttgart.
  5. Scientific supervision of research traineeship of Sebastiano Finocchiaro, student from University of Catania, in Institute for Social and Political Psychology, NAES of Ukraine (September 2019). 
  6. All=In Pathfinder project (March – September 2018) with meetings organized by Federal Agency for Civic Education (Germany), School Development Support Agency (UK) on 16 – 17 April 2018 in Lisbon and on 5 – 7 September 2018 in Marseille. 
  7. Project “Media Competencies for Youth” conceptual workshops organized by Goethe-Institute Ukraine and Schwarzkopf-Stiftung on 15 – 16 May 2017 in Munich and on 16th September 2017 in Kyiv. 
  8. Focus groups “Hard-to-Reach learners”. Meetings organized by Federal Agency for Civic Education (Germany) on 20 – 21 October 2015 in Thessaloniki and 8 – 9 November 2016 in Zagreb.
  9. Regional coordination (Crimea) of INTAS project The quest for ethno-national identity: positive and negative effects (June 2004 – May 2007). Grant agreement ID: INTAS 2003-51-4997 

“World Roads” project

In 2022 to contribute to psychological support of Ukrainian highly qualified migrants NGO Center for Personal and Social Transformations launched an online project “World Roads” with online meetings on Sundays. Art-development sessions last for 1,5 – 2 hours and consist of drawing algorithms and modeling a solution of request (resource or goal) with baking foil or colored plasticine. In general, art-development sessions help migrants to containerize intense emotions and find solutions to problems in complicated life situations. Participants of art-development sessions come through art-development transformations. 

Highly qualified migrants experience a range of psychological challenges due to professional downshifting and necessity to acquire new skills very quickly. Difficulties in finding a job corresponding to the level of qualifications can lead to depressive states of different degrees. Those highly qualified migrants who were forced to change place of living due to war risks can also experience temporary decrease of cognitive abilities and emotional disadaptation. Groups of psychological support can prevent deep depressive states and enhance emotional adaptation. Consequently, highly qualified migrants can contribute much more effectively to accepting communities by realizing their skills to the full (Bondarevskaya, 2022). 

Art-development techniques, elaborated by me, mostly concern resources and identity, and consequently solution to request comes out from subconscious as an insight. Art-development techniques through awareness of feelings, emotions, states help adults to see changes from the point of opening perspectives for development (Bondarevskaya, 2020).

 Moving to safe regions from war is accompanied by negative emotional states which are caused by high level of uncertainty, necessity to change profession, low income, etc. besides war trauma. Many forced migrants pass through the state when they are emotionally not able to feel “taste of life” even when they have everything for that. Art-development techniques can serve for prevention of depressive states development among forced migrants. 

Most adult people do not use or minimize fine motor skills which are effective for stabilization of emotional state in any age. Quite often emotions effect decision-making. Awareness of emotions through drawing psychological algorithms, usage of coloured pencils, markers, coloured plasticine and baking foil modeling engage fine motor skills of arms, promote expression of emotions in creativity, their transformations through creativity and consequently enable to look at the situation from new side, see situation in integrity, in the context, from the point of opening perspectives and opportunities (Bondarevskaya, 2022).