What is your current research focused on?

I am currently working on the project “Attitudes towards Internally and Externally Displaced Persons in Ukraine: Values and Democracy in Conditions of War.” War and displacement shape and affect perceptions of democracy and values, both among Ukrainians who have stayed in Ukraine during the war and those who have left. All of them have acquired different life experiences that have influenced their values and attitudes. This is the main focus of my project.

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What brought you to the Global Migration Centre?

The expertise of Prof. Vincent Chetail in forced migration attracted me to the Global Migration Centre. The legal framework of external and internal displacement is an important component of my project. In addition to engaging with Prof. Chetail’s publications, I had the opportunity to ask questions and receive in-depth replies, which were quite unexpected and enriching for me as a researcher in social psychology. I learned a great deal about the temporary protection regime in Europe and the various challenges related to return and reintegration in war and post-war contexts.

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What is the current project you are leading or working on?

As a visiting fellow, I supervised a research team on the Concept Book “Attitudes towards Migration and Society in Ukraine,” which is now available via open access in the online library of Alfred Nobel University (Dnipro, Ukraine). The book was developed as part of the sub-project “Attitudes towards Migration and Society in Ukraine,” embedded in the Swiss National Science Foundation’s NCCR – on the move.

A quantitative survey was conducted in Ukrainian among students specializing in Law, Economics, and Psychology at Oles Honchar Dnipro National University and Alfred Nobel University, with around 500 valid responses. Data were collected via an online questionnaire (Qualtrics), with approval from the Ethics Commission of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lausanne.

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The Concept Book contains the full text of the questionnaire used for data collection. How can it be useful for other researchers?

The research team invested significant time and effort in constructing this questionnaire, which was based on several theoretical models aligned with the concepts we aimed to measure. For Ukrainian social psychologists, some of these concepts and corresponding items may be unfamiliar and could spark considerable interest. For international researchers, it serves as a tool that can be adapted for research in other cities, regions, or countries.

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What were some of the core concepts you chose to measure, and why do they matter for understanding Ukrainian society today?

We focused on current debates within Ukrainian society, particularly around democracy-related attitudes and solidarity among Ukrainians who remained in the country during the war. Specifically, we investigated the extent to which values, group-based emotions, national identity, different forms of patriotism, democracy-related attitudes, anomie, institutional trust, civil liberties, religiosity, and contact with externally displaced Ukrainians are related to attitudes toward both externally and internally displaced persons.

These findings will help develop theoretical explanations of the social psychological processes shaping attitudes and behavior in contexts of war and large-scale displacement.

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This was a collaborative effort involving six authors. How did working as a team shape the project, and what insights emerged from that collaboration?

From the very beginning of the project, the expertise of researchers—each specializing in a different area of social psychology—proved highly complementary. This interdisciplinary approach greatly enriched our discussions and helped us find optimal solutions throughout the project.

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Research Team

Project leader and coordinator:
Irina Bondarevska – Visiting Fellow at the Global Migration Centre, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies; Head of NGO Center for Personal and Social Transformations (Kyiv, Ukraine)

Scientific supervisor:
Prof. Eva Green – Laboratory of Social Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lausanne

Senior researchers:
Marija Dangubic – Laboratory of Social Psychology, University of Lausanne
Jessica Gale – Laboratory of Social Psychology, University of Lausanne
Emanuele Politi – Center for Social and Cultural Psychology, KU Leuven

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Collaborators in Ukraine

Oles Honchar Dnipro National University
(under a cooperation agreement with the University of Lausanne)
Coordinator: Dr. Zoya Bondarenko – Associate Professor, Dean of the Department of Psychology and Special Education

Alfred Nobel University
(under a cooperation agreement with the University of Lausanne)
Coordinator: Dr. Alina Yudina – Associate Professor, Department of Innovative Technologies in Pedagogy, Psychology, and Social Work; Member of NGO Center for Personal and Social Transformations