Students of Sumy State University have won the second round of the International Student Research Paper Competition in Management.
The research paper “Smart Energy Management as the Foundation for the Development of Sustainable Energy in Ukraine in the Context of Current Challenges” was awarded a First Degree Diploma. The authors of the paper are Mykhailo Shevchenko, a student of the Economics educational programme (group E-52), and Yaroslav Mishchenko, a student of the Entrepreneurship, Trade and Exchange Activities educational programme (group PTB-21). The students’ victory is confirmed by First Degree Diplomas and the protocol of the competition committee.
The research was supervised by Oleksandr Matsenko, PhD in Economics, Associate Professor, Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, Entrepreneurship and Business Administration, Sumy State University, and Iryna Dehtyarova, PhD, Associate Professor at the Department of Marketing, Tilburg School of Economics and Management, Tilburg University, the Netherlands.
The final meeting of the sectoral competition committee took place online on 5 June 2026 at Kremenchuk Mykhailo Ostrohradskyi National University. This year, the competition brought together 93 participants from 46 higher education institutions, who presented 64 student research papers.
Representatives from Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Italy, Georgia, Germany, Czechia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Slovakia, Latvia, France, Spain, Kazakhstan and Finland took part in the competition and its organisation. Such broad international representation highlights the high status of the competition and makes the victory of Sumy State University students especially significant.
The students’ research addresses an issue of great relevance for Ukraine: the development of a resilient, decentralised and energy-efficient system based on the concept of Smart Energy Management. The paper substantiates practical recommendations for the development of sustainable energy, the integration of renewable energy sources, digital management tools, microgrids and virtual power plants as elements of Ukraine’s energy resilience in the context of current challenges.
The victory in this prestigious international competition is strong evidence of the high level of research training of Sumy State University students, the effectiveness of inter-university cooperation and the impact of academic supervision by Ukrainian and European scholars.
We sincerely congratulate Mykhailo Shevchenko, Yaroslav Mishchenko and their research supervisors – Oleksandr Matsenko and Iryna Dehtyarova – on this well-deserved recognition. We wish them new academic achievements, professional growth, inspiration and further victories at the international level!
