Project-Mediated Europeanisation in Poland–Ukraine University Cooperation: A Document-Based Case Study

Abstract

Cross-border university cooperation is often reported through mobility counts and event descriptions, which reveal little about institutional change, evidential strength, or accountability in digital settings. This article examines cooperation between VIZJA University in Poland and Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A. S. Makarenko in Ukraine as a case of project-mediated Europeanisation during war and accelerated digitalisation. The core empirical corpus comprises nine public institutional documents issued in 2024–2026: three official descriptions of Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Modules and six SSPU records directly naming those modules. Four additional sources are used only for context. Claim-level coding distinguishes planned project design [P], institutionally documented activity [D], and analytical inference [I]. The analysis proposes a provisional six-stage Cross-Border Academic Governance Pathway: policy anchoring, joint translation, distributed implementation, local embedding, external review, and institutionalisation. The documents support activity-level participation and feedback roles, but do not establish portfolio-level governance, curricular adoption, improved learning, or digital resilience outcomes. A bounded normative synthesis of EU data-protection, AI, and research-integrity sources informs a forward-looking accountability matrix. The contribution is a testable analytical pathway and monitoring framework, not a causal evaluation of partnership impact.