«Not the infinite patience of people, but the presence of structures»: about academic life in Ukraine on the pages of Springer Nature

On September 10, 2026, the Springer Nature publication published a study by scientists from Berdyansk State Pedagogical University.

The study is about the state of mental health and life of the academic community in Ukraine in conditions of a full-scale invasion.

The authors – Natalia Tsybuliak, Anastasiia Popova, Artem Polulyakhov, Serhii Kovachev, Hanna Lopatina & Yana Suchikova – focus on assessing the mental health of the academic community. The results of the interviews were also presented:

• 71.8% reported a high level of emotional exhaustion;
• 59.4% noted increased depersonalization;
• 52% of respondents had moderate or severe symptoms of depression;
• 44.3% reported moderate or severe anxiety.

The problem of normalizing overwork and suppressing emotions is also emphasized.

Among the immediate reasons are: «forced relocation of universities, loss of infrastructure, remote work during air raids and blackouts, administrative overload and the constant need to “keep the system”».

And, of course, about finding solutions. The authors suggest creating «adaptive support systems»: peer-to-peer communities, psychological cafes, digital services, trauma-sensitive trainings, international partnerships, grant programs and support for the academic diaspora.

Innovations in Global Mental Health (Springer Nature) is an online platform that «provides rapid access to the depth and breadth of an online collection of journals, e-books, reference works and protocols in a wide range of subject disciplines».

View the article at the link: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70134-9_166-1 .

Based on materials from Yana Sychikova’s Facebook page