RENEWABLE ENERGY INDUSTRY & WAR RESILIENCY AND POST-WAR RECOVERY OF UKRAINE: CHALLENGE OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The paper analyzes the training of personnel with higher education in specialty 145 “Renewable energy sources and hydraulic power engineering” for staffing the renewable energy industry on the basis of formal lifelong learning. It is shown that this training, despite some progress, does not yet meet the challenges facing Ukraine recently. These challenges include increasing defense capabilities and security on a high-tech basis in the conditions of a protracted war, high-tech post-war reconstruction of the country, and effective European integration as a competitive state. Among the progressive developments in recent years in this specialty are a doubling (to six) of the number of universities providing relevant training, a multiple expansion of bachelor’s training, sustained public support for training, and the willingness of the population to pay for applicants’ education at their own expense. The unresolved current problems include the outdated standards of higher education, the stagnation of master’s and the absence of doctoral training, which makes it impossible to have a holistic system of formal lifelong learning in higher education, and the general incompleteness of training, which, in conditions of resource shortage, does not allow providing adequate competitive quality. This negatively affects the implementation of the National Energy and Climate Plan for the period up to 2030 and the Strategy for the Development of Higher Education in Ukraine for 2022–2032 due to problems with the lack of relevant highly qualified personnel. It is recommended that state administration bodies pay special attention to ensuring a full-fledged system of formal training of specialists with higher education for renewable energy sources and hydraulic power engineering, in the process of updating the aforementioned National Plan in 2025 in accordance with the government mandate and when developing the draft Operational Plan for the implementation of the aforementioned Strategy in 2025–2028.