“In a time of widespread isolation, let’s talk about how to build better societies with a spirit of solidarity”
February 23-26, 2021 
Poverties, Migrants, Pandemics, and the Idea of a New Social Ethic
Virtual and third-annual conference of the program on Integral Human Development in the Digital Age at the Ukrainian Catholic University
Info and free registration here: https://ihd.ucu.edu.ua/ihdda2021

Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv invites an international audience for four days of virtual discussion in English to develop a “new social ethics” for our current age. In panels at Georgetown University in Washington, DC; the University of Notre Dame in Indiana; and The Angelicum in Rome, more than thirty-five distinguished academics will share their insights and expertise, with opportunities for exchange with the audience.

“In a time of widespread isolation, let’s talk about how to build better societies with a spirit of solidarity,” says Volodymyr Turchynovskyy, the dean of faculty of social sciences of UCU, who three years ago created the program on Integral Human Development in the Digital Age, the conference’s organizing entity. “In 2020, we saw the wonders of technology and how it can help connect and heal us, but we also encountered the real cost of human detachment and isolation. The problems of the modern world were laid bare and now we have a chance to think more clearly about what we owe each other ethically”.

With a mix of panel discussions and interviews, the conference will examine how to strengthen the system of ethics applied to social problems. Speakers include Bishop Borys Gudziak, archbishop of Philadelphia in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, UCU President; Austen Ivereigh, co-author with Pope Francis of Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future; and Katherine Marshall, senior fellow of the Berkely Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. 

Jeremy McBridge of Oxford, attorney Andriy Kostyuk (UCU Law School), and Gloria Giaggioli of the University of Geneva will discuss human rights in times of COVID. Notre Dame’s Scott Appleby, Clemens Sedmak, Catherine Bolten, and Julia Kowalski will explain “the need for a new social ethics.” Led by sociologist of religion José Casanova, a longtime observer of Ukrainian civil society, a distinguished panel from Georgetown University will focus on how the ideas of subsidiarity and solidarity can improve life for refugees and immigrants. 

Sophia Opatska, UCU Viсe-Rector for academic affairs, founding dean of the Lviv Business School at UCU, will lead a conversation on “Еducation for moral agency.” From Rome, Sr. Helen Alford, a Cambridge-trained philosopher and engineer and the vice rector of pontifical university The Angelicum, will moderate a panel called, “Homo Novus [New Man]: From Technological Captivity to New Freedom.”

Those with limited time might wish to join the conference’s concluding round table, Friday, February 26, 19:00 Kyiv time, in which leading speakers will distill the best ideas discussed in the preceding days to answer the question, “What must we do next?”.  

The conference will also feature the experimental panels of the Lviv Lab for the Activation of Democracy, an American-Ukrainian project born of the pandemic era. The panels will include exiles from the Hong Kong liberty movement, which took inspiration from Ukraine’s Euromaidan, who will analyze how human rights fits in the matrix of globalism and localism. Leaders in Austin, Texas, a tech hub, will join Ukrainians in conversation on how to build healthy cities. The Labs students will provide bullet-point summaries of each panel to assist those who cannot attend the entire conference. 

Students from the four universities will present research projects.

• Detailed program here: https://ihd.ucu.edu.ua/ihdda2021#programme
• Time: February 23 – 26, 2021
• Link to register: http://ihd.ucu.edu.ua/ihdda2021/registration

To enhance collegiately and the conference experience in these virtual times, the organizers have created the Integral Human Development Telegram Channel to share conference updates, timely-reminders of upcoming panels, and discussion and fellowship opportunities.