Over recent years, a series of crises, including the economic crises of 2008, the fallout from Brexit, the global pandemic, and various war-related conflicts, as well as the ongoing climate crisis, have led us to perceive that we live in an era of permanent crisis and perpetual instability. Crises will continue to make people’s lives uncertain and their futures threatening. Currently, there is much concern in Europe about the intensification of the economic, political and social crisis caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war, and threats to peace. Ways to address and respond to the crisis are thus urgently required.

The far-reaching disruptions caused by various crises necessitate the prioritising of students’ well-being over the testing of knowledge (Lavrysh, Lytovchenko, Lukianenko, & Golub, 2022), and of the values of tolerance, peaceful conflict resolution and prevention over traditional metrics of academic performance; they also magnify the relationality of education. In the context of ongoing instability and uncertainty, it is thus crucial to shift the focus to fostering relational dynamics between students and staff of educational institutions to ensure better educational futures. Responsive student-staff relationships are fundamental for building partnership and are of great importance in higher education (Healey, Flint, & Harrington, 2014). Partnerships are not an outcome, but rather a process; ways of working together that meet diverse educational and professional needs of students and staff and lead to the change (Healey, Flint, & Harrington, 2014).

This research examines the role of student-staff partnership in the context of war-related crises in Ukraine, specifically addressing the following question: How can student-staff partnership in higher education increase the effectiveness of education in mitigating various crises, particularly in the context of war-related crisis? In what ways can partnership make education more flexible to better accommodate staff and students’ needs during times of crisis?

As part of the partnership collaboration this research invited students to imagine the future of education as a point of departure for studying their needs and for engaging in a genuine dialogue with them. The participants of the research were students from a Ukrainian university who were directly affected by war and crisis. The futures they anticipated were anchored in the present in which they are situated, which is uncertain, life-threatening and disruptive to education. Analysis of their needs enables education to respond to them, becoming more flexible.

To unpack the complexity of above arguments, the research outlines the theoretical framework that includes the studies on the human rights and peace education (Jenkins, 2020; Lum, 2013; Reimers & Chung, 2010; Tomaševski, 2001), disclosing their role in building stable and preferred future. It also contextualises the role of flexibility of education (Houlden & Veletsianos, 2021). 

The research is based on a participatory visual methodology (De Lange, Mitchell, & Stuart, 2007; Rose, 2001) involving researcher-participant collaboration. For this study, I collaborated with student teachers in their first year of a Master’s Education Program (n=6) at Donbas State Pedagogical University in Ukraine. They were invited to draw their imagined future of education. The selection of participants was driven by the aim of engaging with students from the eastern part of Ukraine, who were directly affected by the ongoing war. Some of the participants were displaced, others had refugee status in other countries, and others still lived in the conflict zone. These circumstances led to frequent interruptions in educational processes, making their future extremely uncertain and threatening. It is important to study their vision of the challenges and future potential of education in this time of crisis, as they are keenly aware of the needs education must meet in order to contribute to stability and peace (Reimers & Chung, 2010). Using drawings as a research method involves more than just drawing; it is followed by a short verbal interpretation. Drawings are complemented by verbal research methods (Guillemin, 2004) where collaborative meaning-making takes place and the voices of participants are heard. The research links visual methodology with the social constructionist grounded theory developed by Charmaz (2008). This research included the analysis of both visual data (drawings) and narrative data (participants’ explanations). From the perspective of grounded theory, such interpretation inevitably includes the subjective position of both researcher and students, who play a crucial role in the co-construction that is an inevitable part of the research outcome (Charmaz, 2008). The drawing process and data collection was conducted through video conferences, which were recorded. Drawings were sent to the researcher via email. The first stage in processing the data was reading the drawings and recording how they spoke directly to the researcher, without any attempt at interpretation. During the second phase, the codes were interpreted and the drawings were considered holistically in terms of the future education anticipated by the students and what needs emerged from such anticipations. In the next phase, the need categories were clustered and analysed in the context of the theory. As the number of students who participated in the research was low, every response was significant and all the drawing were included in processing, even those where analysis identified only a poor correlation with the categories.

The study of imagined futures for education through the use of visual methodology enabled analysis of students’ expressed needs in crisis situations. Categories and emergent needs have been identified based on the analysis of students’ drawings and they include: individual needs, which include strengthening well-being, being physically and emotionally safe, welcoming learning spaces, being involved in social connections and communication networks; technological needs, namely having the necessary technology and having access to resources; and pedagogical needs, which are met by strengthening students’ agency. The need for flexibility and relationality in higher education practices was underscored in this context. In crisis conditions, student-staff partnerships are perceived as an ongoing process of collaboration that highlights the need to transform the institutional culture, prioritising trust, care, and inclusivity. Addressing the categories of outlined needs enables the student-staff partnership to be built as a multifaceted framework that integrates technological resources with relational ethics. The vision of education as flexible practice is centered around relationality and responsiveness. Embracing the principles of trust, care, and inclusivity allows for better navigation of crises and creates a learning environment that empowers individuals to prepare for an uncertain future.

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