INTRODUCTION
2014 will go down in history as the year of unprecedented drama and dynamic events for Ukraine. The country underwent the Maidan shootings, the annexation of Crimea, and the commencement of the Russian military aggression on its territory. The state mechanisms had to be almost completely overhauled and reanimated.
The Razumkov Centre has actively involved itself in the large-scale work of designing the Ukraine of the future: democratic, lawful, European, and prosperous.
2014 was a special year from the standpoint of the Centre’s intense collaboration with government agencies. The Centre actively participated in the preparation of two drafts of coalition agreements for parliamentary coalitions and two drafts of the Government’s programme (for two different Cabinets of Ministers) and consulted individual offices and departments, including on the subject of protecting the country and strengthening its defence.
If, at the beginning of the year, the Razumkov Centre may have been officially regarded as “an agent of foreign influence” and its prospects may have looked rather uncertain, by the end of the year, according to the assessment by the prestigious 2014 GLOBAL GO TO THINK TANK INDEX REPORT, it had entered the 100 topmost think tanks in the world and the top five best think tanks in Central and Eastern Europe. Thus, the Razumkov Centre asserted its reputation as Ukraine’s only analytical institution that ranks among the world’s leading think tanks. Despite a gruelling political environment, with the ongoing demand for quick response to threats and challenges to the state and vigorous exertion of the Centre’s analytical capacity for intellectual support of the democratic forces and the new pro-European government, the Razumkov Centre carried on its planned activities without interruption. In 2015, the Centre conducted a number of serious research projects, the results of which were presented in Ukraine and abroad, acted in international arena, researched public opinion trends and built up its institutional structure.
This was our contribution to the process of steering Ukraine back towards the path of democratic, European development, programming reforms, protecting its statehood, and edifying Ukrainian civil society in creating the conditions for our country to become a successful global player.
Anatoliy Rachok,
Director General of Razumkov Centre