Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program

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ABOUT THE PROGRAM

The Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program (UELP) was a 10-month academic training fellowship hosted at Stanford University. The program was founded in 2016 by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute together with Oleksandr and Kateryna Akymenko (Stanford John S. Knight fellows) as an initiative to address development challenges in Ukraine and across the broader region.

UELP provided a unique opportunity to three mid-career practitioners working actively as policy-makers, legal professionals, entrepreneurs, and leaders of civil society organizations in Ukraine to visit one of the world’s leading research universities for an academic year. The program was designed to facilitate capacity building for fellows through faculty mentorship, community engagement, courses, events and site visits to Silicon Valley technology firms.

UELP was funded with generous support from Astem.Foundation (Rustem Umerov), Believe in Yourself Foundation (Victor and Iryna Ivanchyk), Dragon Capital (Tomas Fiala), MacPaw (Oleksandr Kosovan), Luminate, Liudy Maybutnoho (Svyatoslav Vakarchuk), Parimatch Tech, and the Western NIS Enterprise Fund.

Summary

The Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program combines academic courses, faculty mentorship and community engagement to support capacity building and leadership development for program participants.

The program will have a project-based approach to learning where fellows will identify an issue they would like to address and/or gain an in-depth understanding of to apply once they return to Ukraine. Over the course of the academic year, each fellow will have a faculty mentor with whom they will meet regularly during their stay. Faculty members will engage fellows through guidance on their projects, coursework, discussions around challenges in Ukraine and connecting fellows to the diverse Stanford community.

Fellows will have the opportunity to take courses at Stanford that support their area of expertise and also provide them with an academic foundation to further their knowledge base. In addition, they will visit technology firms based in Silicon Valley to learn about approaches to different challenges around the world. During the final 6 weeks of the program, fellows will present their findings to the program faculty and the greater Stanford community.

Eligibility

This program is aimed at mid-career practitioners working actively as policy-makers, legal professionals, social entrepreneurs, business entrepreneurs and leaders of civil society organizations.

1. Candidates should hold Ukrainian citizenship and must reside in the country, and have plans to return to Ukraine after the fellowship.

2. Candidates must be at least 28 years of age at the start of the fellowship program.

3. Candidates should have demonstrated professional and personal achievements in a relevant sector of democracy, development and the rule of law.

4. Candidates must have at least five years of experience to qualify for the fellowship. Those with more experience are much more competitive in the selection process.

5. We strive to recruit a diverse group of four individuals who are at the right stage in their professional trajectory to benefit from rigorous academic training and mentorship. Successful applicants will have the academic credentials necessary to participate in academic courses offered at Stanford University. A bachelor's degree at the time of participation in the program is a requirement for admission to the program. We do not accept candidates who are in the midst of full-time university degree programs.

6. A working knowledge of English is an important prerequisite. It is expected that each fellow have a solid command of written and spoken English in order to fully benefit and participate in the program.

All applicants must be prepared to commit themselves to the fellowship rather than to regular professional work. If selected, your full-time job is to be a Stanford fellow. We require fellows to take leave from their regular jobs, whether they be in the nonprofit or government sectors, to devote their energy to the fellowship.

Support

Recipients receive a stipend for the 10-month program. The stipend amount provides for academic resources, relocation expenses and living expenses in the Bay Area.

Application

Applications for the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program are currently closed.

The Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program uses the WizeHive application system to manage all incoming applications and the review process and contains the following sections:

The application contains the following sections:

Academic Advisory Council

The program's academic advisory council mentors fellows on coursework and projects. Its members include leading political scientists pioneering innovative research and analysis in the fields of democracy, development and the rule of law.

Larry Diamond

Senior Fellow

Hoover Institution and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy and its Global Digital Policy Incubator. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Francis Fukuyama

Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy. He is also a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science. From 2015 to 2021, he served as the Mosbacher Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).

Erik Jensen

Professor of the Practice of Law at Stanford Law School

CDDRL Affiliated Faculty

Erik Jensen holds joint appointments at Stanford Law School and Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. He is Professor of the Practice, Director of the Rule of Law Program at Stanford Law School, an Affiliated Core Faculty at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and Senior Advisor for Governance and Law at The Asia Foundation.

Kathryn Stoner

Mosbacher Director

Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director.

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ABOUT THE PROGRAM