AGENT-BASED SIMULATING OF UKRAINIAN UNIVERSITIES ADAPTATION TO A FULL-SCALE RUSSIAN INVASION

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has severely disrupted the country’s higher education system, damaging infrastructure, displacing staff and students, and forcing institutions to rapidly adapt. Despite these challenges, Ukrainian universities have demonstrated resilience by relocating, switching to online education, and modifying academic procedures. To explore how Ukrainian universities, students, and faculty adapt to war-induced disruptions using an agent-based model that captures individual behaviors, institutional strategies, and systemic patterns under crisis conditions. Methods: The study employed agent-based modeling (ABM) to simulate the behavior of students, teachers, and universities in a wartime context. The model was calibrated using official statistics and empirical studies from 2022–2024. Scenario analysis was used to assess the effects of ongoing war and policy changes, such as the removal of military deferment for students. The model reproduced major empirical trends, including drops in enrollment and staff numbers and patterns of stress-related dropout. Scenario analysis revealed that the war accounted for a 10% reduction in student numbers, while eliminating military deferment would cause an additional 6% decline. University performance declined under war intensity and recovered more slowly when relocation or online transitions occurred. The results demonstrate that agent-based modeling is a valuable tool for analyzing crisis adaptation in higher education. Both external shocks (e.g., war) and internal policy changes (e.g. deferment rules) significantly affect system stability. Universities' survival depends on flexible adaptation strategies informed by simulation-based insights.