Alina Nychyk

Dr Alina Nychyk is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester and a Postdoctoral Researcher at ETH Zurich.

Alina Nychyk defended her PhD in Politics at the University of Manchester in April 2022. Her supervisors were: Dr Olga Onuch and Prof Dimitris Papadimitriou. Her topic was 'Strategic Decision-Making in Times of War: An Analysis of EU-Ukraine-Russian Relations During the First Year of the Conflict in Ukraine'. She analysed Ukrainian leaders' strategic decision-making in their relations with Russia and EU in February 2014 - February 2015. To explain Ukraine's foreign policy steps, Alina developed a game theory-inspired analytical framework for decision-making and conducted 38 elite interviews with EU, Ukrainian and Russian policy-makers.

Alina has Bachelor Degree in International Economics from Kyiv National Economic University and Master Degree in International Economic Relations from Wroclaw University of Economics (both with the highest distinctions). As an exchange student, she has studied at Gazi University in Ankara and at Goethe University in Frankfurt on Main. During her PhD studies, Alina was also an exchange fellow at Maastricht University.

Alina gained diverse experience in international companies (Hewlett Packard, Dreberis consulting), NGOs (Polish Forum of Young Diplomats, Ukraine Democracy Initiative, Promote Ukraine) and European institutions (European Commission and European Parliament). Apart from her scholarly work, Alina is a social activist, dealing with women’s empowerment, democracy and EU-Ukraine integration. Now, she is an elected member of the board of the association Professional Government of Ukraine (3 000 Alumni of the world best universities, who returned to Ukraine to build the best government in the world in the country). Alina is happy to involve in further research or social projects that correspond her interests. She is available for media comments in Ukrainian, Russian, English, Polish and German.

My core research interests are: EU-Ukraine-Russia relations, Ukraine's foreign policy, EU-Ukraine integration, the Russian-Ukrainian war and foreign policy analysis.

My PhD thesis's title is “Strategic Decision-Making in Times of War: An Analysis of EU-Ukraine-Russia Relations During the First Year of the Conflict in Ukraine”. I have developed game theory framework for decision-making in foreign policy and employed it to the conflict in Ukraine. I interviewed policy-makers and analysed official documents with media outlets. My Master thesis was about the European Union's enlargement by Ukraine.

I was a Teaching Assistant at the course 'Introduction to Comparative Politics' in February-June 2022.

I am available for media requests in Ukrainian, Russian, English, Polish and German. Please contact me via alina.nychyk@eup.gess.ethz.ch.