Warsaw University of Technology's support for Ukraine was the theme of the 'Welcome HOME' conference at Politecnico di Milano

Prof. Szyłak-Szydłowski in the middle

The HOME (Home of Mobile Europeans) project addresses the need to find accommodation - one of the main challenges during international mobility. The project aims, among other things, to improve the quality and transparency of information about students' accommodation through the development of a mobile app, and to provide them with the best possible accommodation. It engages partners from universities, student communities and accommodation providers. Partners include the Politecnico di Milano, the Erasmus Student Network, the European University Foundation, HousingAnywhere, the International Union of Property Owners and Confia International.

The conference organisers invited a representative of the Warsaw University of Technology, as a member of the ENHANCE consortium, to give a presentation on the support provided by the WUT academic community to refugees from war-torn Ukraine. In response to this invitation, Mirosław Szyłak-Szydłowski, Ph.D., Professor of the Warsaw University of Technology, Vice Dean for Student Affairs at the Faculty of Building Installations, Hydraulic Engineering and Environmental Engineering, gave a presentation on 'The accommodation and humanitarian assistance to war-affected refugees at Warsaw University of Technology' in Milan. He talked about the aid activities organized by the Warsaw University of Technology community. Our university provided accommodation for more than 600 refugees in PW student residences, centers, and guest rooms.  We also helped them find accommodation in flats, often owned by representatives of our academic community.  We registered 250 applications from Ukrainian students in a special recruitment system. We recruited 18 staff from that country. We created a Ukrainian 'language room' in the 'Language Tandems' project, of which Warsaw University of Technology is the leader in the ENHANCE consortium. 215 participants from Kyiv and Lviv Polytechnic Universities have registered on the Language Tandems platform. These Ukrainian universities are partner universities of the ENHANCE consortium (ENHANCE Network Partners).

Representatives of Europe's largest universities, including those affiliated to the ENHANCE consortium, expressed their appreciation for the activities for Ukraine undertaken by the Warsaw University of Technology and congratulated us on the concrete results. They particularly appreciated the activities supporting the adaptation of Ukrainian refugees to new conditions, including the organization of workshops, classes for children and young people and the provision of language courses.