The Applied Sciences Faculty of Ukrainian Catholic University has announced the opening of a bachelor’s degree program in robotics.

On 8 February 2025, the UCU Senate (Supervisory Board) unanimously approved a decision to start a bachelor’s degree program in robotics. With the new academic year 2025, students will be able to gain modern knowledge and practical skills in the areas of robotics, engineering, and artificial intelligence.

The opening of the new program is a logical continuation in the development of the Applied Sciences Faculty, which in 2024 opened a specialization in robotics as part of its bachelor’s program in computer science. And so, with the 2024-2025 spring semester, 20 first-year students began studies in this specialization.

The new bachelor’s degree program in robotics offers:

  • studies in three areas: robotics, computer engineering, and embedded development
  • courses with leading engineers and partners in the industry, including Eleks, SoftServe, Renesas, Infineon, EdPro, and the Institute of Condensed Matter Physics (ICMP) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
  • access to modern laboratories, in particular a robotics laboratory and optical laboratory.
  • joint courses and a partnership with National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

The head of the program is Oleh Fareniuk, theoretical physicist and assistant professor at the UCU Applied Sciences Faculty, who has worked at the university since 2017. He teaches the courses “Principles of computer organization,” “The architecture of computer systems,” “Operating systems,” and “Modern C++.” For a number of years, Fareniuk has led a robotics club at UCU, which has become the basis for this field at the university.

Oleh Fareniuk stated: “The robotics program is a response to modern challenges and demands that exist in Ukrainian society. Experts in the field of robotics are critically important for Ukraine’s technological development, in particular in the development of dual-purpose robotic systems and rehabilitation devices.”

Robotics experts are also important in the process of the rehabilitation of invalids and the wounded and their reintegration into daily life. This is part of the vision area, healing the wounds of war, which is part of the 2030 Development Strategy of Ukrainian Catholic University.

“To prepare, for example, bionic prosthetics, experts in computer engineering are needed, because reading signals from muscles is a very complex computational engineering task. It’s necessary to know how to measure the signal, how to read it properly, to understand, and to re-create it with the help of a small computer which is located in the prosthesis. This all requires substantial qualifications. We will teach part of this in courses in the robotics specialization. Of course, making prostheses is an art involving experts from various fields, in particular in medicine. But even the adaptation of a prosthesis for a person requires a specialist oriented to robotics,” said the program’s head.

The head of the program, Oleh Fareniuk

 

The opening of the bachelor’s degree program in robotics is a new stage in the development of technological education at UCU and a contribution to the future of engineering in Ukraine. The first cohort for the program will start in September 2025, in the next academic year.

“The educational program in robotics will stimulate innovations, the development of automated production, and the preparation of highly-qualified experts. It will foster the creation of solutions to working in hazardous conditions, the renewal of infrastructure, the development of medical robotics, and also increase Ukraine’s competitiveness in the world market. Thanks to an interdisciplinary approach, the program combines knowledge in engineering, artificial intelligence, and business analysis, forming a new standard of education and supporting sustainable growth for the economy and education.” The Acting Dean of the Applied Sciences Faculty, Oles Dobosevych, thus commented on the opening of the program.

The program’s educational partner is National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Industry partners are Eleks, SoftServe, Renesas, Infineon, EdPro, and the Institute of Condensed Matter Physics (ICMP) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.