National contact points as instruments for strengthening Ukrainian universities' participation in Horizon Europe under wartime conditions

Abstract

The current wartime context in Ukraine has created substantial barriers to the effective participation of universities in international research and innovation programmes, particularly Horizon Europe. Under wartime conditions, participation in such programmes becomes not only a mechanism of scientific collaboration, but also a critical instrument for sustaining research capacity and supporting institutional resilience. However, the effectiveness of participation depends on the functioning of a complex research support system that integrates institutional, national and international actors. The objective of this article is to develop a conceptually grounded approach to understanding the role of National Contact Points (NCPs) in strengthening participation of Ukrainian universities in Horizon Europe under crisis conditions. The study systematizes the functional roles of key actors within the research support system, including the Ukrainian research and higher education system, NCPs and the Horizon Europe research and innovation ecosystem and analyses their transformation under wartime influence. Based on the synthesis of academic and policy-oriented sources, the paper proposes an NCP-mediated research participation model and a structured analysis of functional transformations of key actors. The findings indicate that wartime conditions intensify existing structural limitations, particularly related to coordination gaps and insufficient user-oriented support. At the same time, they create conditions for the evolution of NCPs from information providers to active intermediaries facilitating consortium building, coordination and continuity of participation. The study concludes that strengthening participation in Horizon Europe requires the transformation of the research support system into an integrated, user-oriented and resilience-driven framework. The proposed approach contributes to a better understanding of intermediary roles in research support systems under conditions of external shock.