Overview of the ICT sector  in Ukraine

Download a more detailed report on the national ICT sector elaborated by the EECA Cluster here.

In the framework of the former Soviet Union Ukraine had developed a strong tradition in the fields of cybernetics, mathematics and computer science. Ukraine is one of the few countries in the world which has produced space stations, global radio, microwave and satellite communication systems, aircraft, nuclear submarines and surface vessels, nuclear power generating stations and other achievements of modern engineering. In addition, Ukrainian engineers, scientists and programmers have been engaged in large-scale complex projects for forty years, cutting across various technology disciplines.

Following this tradition, over the past few years Ukraine has rapidly become a strong player in software engineering and IT business services, having as major advantages the up-to-date technical skills and education of its workforce. Because of the national efforts towards technology development, Ukraine is a society with a national focus on research and development.

Thus, at research level, there seems to be a strong but not yet efficiently exploited collaboration potential between Ukrainian and EU ICT actors, mainly due to the well established educational system, the availability of a large pool of highly qualified human resource as well as the existence of significant ICT infrastructures which are established in many Ukrainian Universities.

The most prominent ICT areas of collaboration between Ukrainian and EU actors are:

• Supercomputing: During the past 10 year a number of Ukrainian Universities have developed powerful supercomputers which allow solving complex scientific and applied problems, which required significant IT resources. Moreover, the development of the National Grid infrastructure increases the possibilities of the Ukrainian universities to collaborate with the EU counterparts.
• Microelectronics: Ukrainian ICT organisations and Institutes have over a 50-year tradition in this areas and a significant number of organisations and institutions developing microelectronic applications.
• e-Applications: Ukraine has a long tradition in e-Health applications and a significant number of ICT organisations and private companies have developed several systems for medical applications. In addition, the development of e-Learning applications and other ICT techniques used in education is the most common collaboration ICT field between European and Ukrainian Universities, while e-learning is one of the items that are being addressed by the EU-Ukraine Action plan , and EU funding is already being used to establish relevant resources.

At business level, Ukraine is increasingly becoming one of the most attractive outsourcing destinations in Europe thanks to its low labour cost, skilled human resources and large internal market. There are already joint venture activities involving countries from EU, Canada, Russia and the USA. Ukrainian outsourcing providers have the ability to compete significantly both on a cost basis and quality. Moreover, Ukraine benefits from its geographical proximity to the EU market as well as the positive changes in the country, that facilitate an increased collaboration between EU and Ukrainian companies, and their on-site and offshore development teams.

Even though in the past, most of the outsourcing work performed by Ukrainian providers has been software and web-design, nowadays these providers offer a much wider range of services including software engineering, application engineering, ERP systems and IT consulting.

 EECA Cluster contactg points in Ukraine: