In 2025, the University of Edinburgh proudly hosted the NICE (Network for Intercultural Competence to facilitate Entrepreneurship) Summer School. KNU students at the NICE Summer School. Students taking part in the annual NICE programme came to Edinburgh from across Europe and South Africa to partake in a week-long itinerary designed to enhance their intercultural competence and entrepreneurship. About the programmeEach year, the NICE programme equips students with the knowledge and practical experience to succeed in the global workplace. The programme supports students in achieving four key aims: Building skills to enhance employability Encouraging entrepreneurship Introducing tools for effective collaboration Developing intercultural competence. This year’s Summer School was unique, as it was co-hosted with Taras Shevchenko for the first time. To help support the programme, a delegation of two lecturers and two project coordinators joined the 10 Ukrainian students taking part in the Summer School. What I’ve learned about working across cultures is that you have to be patient. You have to be able to sometimes unlearn what you know so that you can understand other people more. You have to be able to step into other people’s shoes and have sympathy and understanding for other cultures.” NICE Summer School participant Tackling real-world problemsThe Summer School is the in-person finale to the year-long online programme, which hones each participant’s teamwork, creativity, problem-solving, and decision-making. The students work collaboratively in small international groups, identifying opportunities to use their now well-practised skills to tackle a challenge brief based on real-world problems within Edinburgh, with each team member bringing insights uniquely tied to their cultural backgrounds. “It builds on that online experience with human interaction and connectivity, to hear each other’s stories and be on the journey together puts students in an environment which truly challenges their creativity and their ability to come up with great solutions.” Isabell Majewsky Anderson, Head of Service, Study and Work Away Service, University of Edinburgh While the focus of this was on tackling issues within Edinburgh and the surrounding area, the participation of the KNU students brought an additional dimension, reminding the cohort of the relevance and importance of intercultural cooperation and understanding at a time when the international landscape is fraught with increasing levels of global conflict and political instability. Working with colleagues, when their lives and livelihoods are at risk, it gives us a special incentive to prioritise this collaboration. We care about this work, and also deeply care about our friends in Kyiv. John Bennett, Projects team Study and Work Away Projects Manager, SWAY An equitable partnershipKNU’s resilience as an institution and its willingness to collaborate amid extreme hardships are part of the bedrock of our equitable partnership. We celebrated the success of our well-established UK-Ukraine twinning programme on the final day of the Summer School with an event in the Edinburgh Futures Institute. The Ukrainian Summer School students joined University of Edinburgh Colleagues, and representatives of the Consulate of Ukraine to listen to recorded messages from KNU colleagues, presentations on collaborative projects and a bilingual performance of Robert Burns’ “To a Mouse”. The students also gave a presentation about their experience taking part in the NICE programme and the valuable intercultural skills it had fostered within them. Discover more NICE Summer School Edinburgh-KNU partnership NICE summer school 2025 participants gather on their final day. This article was published on 2025-10-28
