On 16-17 December 2025, the kick-off meeting of the international Erasmus+ CBHE project “Alumni Management Excellence: Building University Capacity For Sustainable Graduate Engagement” (No. 101236357 – ALMEX – ERASMUS-EDU-2025-CBHE) took place in Wrocław, Poland, hosted by the Foundation of the Ukrainian Catholic University.

The international grant project ALMEX aims to transform alumni relations into a strategic development tool for higher education institutions. The core objective of the initiative is the implementation of the Circular Alumni Engagement Model, which is based on a mutually beneficial and dynamic partnership between universities and their graduates.

The meeting brought together representatives of all partner organisations and marked the official launch of the project, which focuses on strengthening universities’ institutional capacity in alumni community management and ensuring their sustainable engagement in university life.

Representatives of Sumy State University who participated in the kick-off meeting included:

• Alona Yevdokymova – Head of the Academic Internship and Employer Engagement Office, Associate Professor at the Oleg Balatskyi Department of Management;
  
  
• Anna Nenia – Head of the Department of Information Technologies, Associate Professor;
  
  
• Iryna Tsehelnikova – Head of the General Organizational Support and International Protocol Group, International Relations Office.
  
  

The meeting opened with welcoming remarks and a presentation of the agenda by Rev. Bohuslav Prakh, First Vice-Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), and Oleh Pasko, Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Economics and Business and Project Coordinator from UCU. They emphasized the strategic importance of the ALMEX project for renewing approaches to alumni engagement in higher education institutions and strengthening the role of alumni communities in university development.

In his presentation, Oleh Pasko outlined the key objectives, structure, expected results, and long-term impact of ALMEX, with particular attention given to the interconnection between work packages and the contribution of each partner.

During the partner presentation sessions, Ukrainian participants from the Ukrainian Catholic University, Sumy State University, Zaporizhzhia National University, and the National University of Water and Environmental Engineering, as well as international partners – Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Netherlands), University of Alicante (Spain), Warsaw School of Economics (Poland), and the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance (Ukraine) – presented their institutions, shared their experience in alumni engagement, and outlined their expectations from participation in the project.

Representatives of Sumy State University actively contributed to discussions on the project’s strategic components. In particular, Anna Nenia presented the Dissemination and Visibility Strategy, which plays a crucial role in scaling up and promoting the results of ALMEX.

Over the two-day meeting, partners agreed on the project implementation roadmap extending until September 2028, approved the Project Management and Coordination Plan, and endorsed the Quality Assurance and Monitoring Plan. The next steps include the creation of digital alumni web hubs, the development of tailored engagement strategies, the implementation of mentoring programmes, and the establishment of international alumni clubs abroad.

Participation in the ALMEX project will enable Sumy State University to reach a new level of institutional resilience and to position its alumni as active partners in the development of the academic community. The agreements reached and decisions taken provide a clear roadmap for the successful implementation of the project and the achievement of its objectives by 2028.