Ukrainian Scientists Shape Global Land Policy at LandNET-2025

 

At the personal invitation of the network coordinator Mr. Morten HARTVIGSEN, an official delegation from NUBiP of Ukraine participated in the event. The delegation included Professor Taras IEVSIUKOV, Dean of the Faculty of Land Management, and Professor Andrii MARTYN, Head of the Department of Land Use Planning, who represented the university on behalf of the Rector, Professor Vadym TKACHUK.

 

The event served as a key international platform in 2025 for discussing land consolidation from both European and global perspectives. The workshop brought together more than one hundred experts from nearly thirty countries. The program included presentations of articles from a special issue of the FAO Land Tenure Journal, exchanges of best practices in consolidation, discussions on climate resilience, community and landowner engagement, women’s land rights, and agricultural land market development.

 

Professor Taras IEVSIUKOV delivered a comprehensive report on the new master’s program at NUBiP of Ukraine, Land Consolidation and Land Banking, developed in accordance with FAO recommendations and launched in the 2024/25 academic year. He detailed the program’s competency-based structure, which includes ten core modules, a mandatory industrial internship, and a master’s thesis. He emphasized the integration of FAO e-courses, guest lectures by European scholars, and shared initial results: in 2024, 10 master’s students enrolled in the program with the specialized elective track. The program has also yielded successful field cases and is ready to support inter-university mobility. The workshop participants praised the Ukrainian model as a modern approach to training land managers for implementing consolidation policies in transitioning economies.

 

Professor Andriy MARTYN presented an analysis titled Lessons from the Opening of the Agricultural Land Market in Ukraine, highlighting the phased liberalization of land turnover (beginning in 2021 for individuals and in 2024 for Ukrainian legal entities), price dynamics across more than half a million hectares, the impact of martial law on registries, advances in open data, the launch of the State Land Bank, and regulatory policy priorities for 2025-2028. The report underscored achievements in digital transparency, anti-corruption safeguards, and the prospects of transitioning to a new system of mass monetary land valuation, which sparked an engaging discussion among participants.

 

During the session for electing the LandNET board for the next three-year term, Professor Taras IEVSIUKOV was unanimously elected as a board member-marking the first time a representative of the Ukrainian academic community has joined the governing body of this esteemed international network. This milestone signifies international recognition of NUBiP of Ukraine’s innovative work in land management and underscores the high standing of Ukrainian specialists on the European and global stage.

 

The participation of the university delegation in the workshop reflects the active international engagement of NUBiP of Ukraine. It contributed to the dissemination of Ukrainian experience in land reform, the formation of new partnerships for joint educational programs, research, and pilot projects in land consolidation, and highlighted the strategic importance of Ukrainian land management in fostering sustainable and competitive rural development across Europe.

 

Department of Land Use Planning