California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) and Lviv Polytechnic National University, Ukraine, one of the largest technical universities in Eastern Europe, announced that the institutions are developing an agreement to establish a partnership and initiate international collaborative activities to promote joint educational, scientific and cultural development.

The international partnership will be designed to enhance international understanding and deepen friendship between CSUSB and Lviv Polytechnic National University, starting with cooperation in the area of entrepreneurship.

Tomás D. Morales, president of CSUSB, said, “This is tremendous news and a wonderful opportunity that will ultimately benefit students, and the faculty and staff at both of our institutions. The Memorandum of Understanding reinforces my belief that students receive an incredible benefit from international studies. I look forward to our two institutions working together.”

Yurii Bobalo, professor, University Leadership Rector, said, “International interaction and cooperation of the world’s universities play an important role in the world today. This allows for the integration of knowledge, opens new ways of addressing the problems that humanity is facing. The cooperation of the Lviv Polytechnic with the California State University, San Bernardino will provide an opportunity to exchange experience in the educational and scientific sphere and will open up new opportunities for the development of both universities.”

The initial areas of international cooperation include developing programs with CSUSB’s School of Entrepreneurship at the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration and Lviv Polytechnic National University’s Tech StartUp School. The collaboration will promote joint activities and seminars for students and faculty from both universities focused on entrepreneurship, research activities and innovation technology.

CSUSB Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration
CSUSB Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration 

The partnership will help enhance the CSUSB entrepreneurial program, which is recognized among the best in the globe. In recent national rankings from The Princeton Review, the entrepreneurial program was ranked in the Top 50 Graduate Entrepreneurship programs in the United States and globally.

“The agreement will help expand the global impact for both Lviv National Polytechnical University and the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration, our School of Entrepreneurship, and the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship (IECE),” said Tomás Gómez-Arias, dean of the Jack H. Brown College. “We look forward to working with our fellow academics and entrepreneurs with the exchange of research, best practices and growth programs.”

Conferences, seminars and academic meetings will be held virtually until the war in Ukraine is resolved. This partnership was initiated by Ukrainian-based investor Christopher Watson's aspiration to increase international relations between universities by enhancing the proficiency of students and academic staff and increasing the business competencies of their startups.