The online meeting on 6 November. Main picture: the Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University delegation led by Provost Oksana Chernysh (centre). Top row, from left: Idongesit Ubong, Professor Wajiha Raza Rizvi, the Zhytomyr Polytechnic room, Dr Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob, Dr Margee Ensign and Dr Antonio Garcia.
Ukraine’s Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University (ZPSU) and the Global Centre for Rehumanising Democracy (GCRD) signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding on Friday, 6 November 2026. The agreement opens the way for joint research, teaching and learning exchanges.
At the signing, GCRD Board Chair Dr. Margee Ensign spoke about the role universities play in civic engagement and democratic resilience. ZPSU will fulfill this role through the Democracy Discourse Index (DDI), which monitors and measures the quality of public discourse as an indicator of democratic health. Developed by GCRD in partnership with a consortium of universities, the index tracks empathy, civility, trust and democratic agency in discourse across social media platforms and on comments sections of news outlets. Tracking those habits over time can reveal where the foundations of democratic participation are strengthening or wearing thin.
Universities provide the research teams behind the DDI and ReHuman AI, the DDI’s purpose-built system for monitoring and measuring public discourse at scale. As part of their academic or co-curricular activities, three trained student researchers, under faculty supervision, independently assess each comment in a randomised sample corpus. They use a shared rubric covering 20 behavioural indicators of empathy, civility, trust and democratic agency. The resulting assessments train ReHuman AI to apply the same criteria to much larger corpora of comments. Independent scoring supports objectivity, while researchers’ knowledge of the nuances of local language and context helps preserve what a comment says. The tool is also designed to monitor hate and sexist speech, synthetic commentary and coordinated disinformation.
University speakers during the signing included Professor Oksana Chernysh, Provost/Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, Human Capital Development and Social Leadership, and Professor Larysa Serhiienko, Dean of the Faculty and Doctor of Science in Public Administration. GCRD Executive Director Dr. Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob, Trustee and COO Dr. Antonio Garcia, and Senior Fellow Dr. Wajiha Rizvi also spoke during the event.
As part of the partnership, Dr. Jacob is teaching a course (online) this semester centred on the DDI in the Faculty of National Security, Law and International Relations alongside Professor Valentyna Ksendzuk at ZPSU. The two institutions also plan broader exchanges, joint research projects and publications, and shared conferences, workshops and seminars.
