Abstract for: Learning Economics with Dynamic Modeling. A Norwegian-Ukrainian Collaboration Project.

In 2012, after a few years of informal collaboration, the System Dynamics Group at Norway's University of Bergen and the Finance Department at Ukraine's National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy launched an international project designed to build dynamic modeling capacity at the Ukrainian university. Called "Learning Economics with Dynamic Modeling", the project has been funded in three phases by Norway's Center for International Cooperation in Education. Built around a strategy of "train the trainers", the project has enabled 16 students and 3 professors from Kyiv to learn system dynamics modeling methods in Bergen and return to Kyiv to train their colleagues. A bachelor-level course System Dynamics Methods in Finance was started in 2014 and system dynamics has also been incorporated in several existing courses. A distance learning link has been built between Bergen and Kyiv, and when the first system dynamics online course begins in September 2015 that will make the partnership even more sustainable in the years ahead. This paper aims to describe the development of relationship between two universities and how the project has contributed to system dynamics capacity building in Ukraine.