Soft Skills Summit 2026: MAUP Graduate Students Brought Together Thousands of Professionals to Discuss Human Capital Development
The Interregional Academy of Human Resource Management demonstrates that a modern institution of higher education is not merely a place to acquire knowledge, but also an environment where professional initiatives take shape, leadership potential develops, and projects are born that can extend far beyond the academic community.
A striking confirmation of this was the Soft Skills Summit 2026 — a large-scale professional event dedicated to the development of human competencies in the age of artificial intelligence.
Of particular significance to the Academy is the fact that the founders and main organizers of the Soft Skills Summit 2026 are graduate students from the MAUP Department of Public Administration — Ihor Lukianenko and Nataliia Novhorodska—whose academic advisor is the department’s deputy chair, Hanna Kuzmenko.
This is more than just the Academy’s participation in a large-scale professional event. It is an example of how MAUP’s research and educational environment fosters initiatives that combine academic knowledge, practical experience, professional leadership, and socially significant activities.
From Graduate Studies to a Large-Scale Professional Project
The Soft Skills Summit 2026 brought together:
- over 70 Ukrainian and international experts;
- over 5,000 participants;
- three days of professional development, practical case studies, discussions, and the exchange of experiences.
The summit focuses on the competencies that directly influence a professional’s competitiveness today: critical and creative thinking, leadership, effective communication, emotional intelligence, teamwork, adaptability, the ability to engage in continuous learning, and responsible decision-making.
The summit’s core logic is reflected in the following sequence:
INDIVIDUAL → TEAM → ORGANIZATION
This aligns with the modern understanding of organizational development: strong teams and effective institutions begin with individuals capable of thinking critically, interacting with others, taking responsibility, leading others, and fostering a culture of trust.
A strong academic environment is one in which
The story of the Soft Skills Summit 2026 is particularly telling in that it was organized by MAUP graduate students.
Ihor Lukianenko and Nataliia Novhorodska demonstrated that a modern graduate student can be not only a researcher but also an initiator, organizer, leader, and creator of a professional community.
When the Academy’s graduate students not only conduct scientific research but also create large-scale projects, bring together thousands of participants, and engage dozens of Ukrainian and international experts, academic training takes on a real practical and social dimension.
This is precisely where the value of a modern educational environment lies: it should not only impart knowledge but also create conditions in which people learn to generate ideas, take responsibility, rally others around those ideas, and bring their own initiatives to life through professionally and socially significant projects.
We sincerely thank the organizers of the Soft Skills Summit 2026 — Ihor Lukianenko and Nataliia Novhorodska — for their professionalism, broad-mindedness, responsibility, and for creating a meaningful space for the open exchange of knowledge, experience, ideas, and modern practices.
Their example convincingly demonstrates the potential of the MAUP graduate student community and the opportunities opened up by the combination of scholarship, professional initiative, and leadership.
MAUP—an education that shapes leaders.
Leaders are those who shape Ukraine’s future.
