Youth Development as the Basis of National Resilience System in Ukraine

The world is entering a period of prolonged instability: geopolitical confrontation, technological acceleration, demographic pressure, information manipulation, social fragmentation and declining institutional trust. These dynamics are no longer external to youth development. They are becoming the environment in which development takes place.

Youth development is becoming a question of national resilience, democratic continuity and long-term competitiveness. The way societies support young people through adolescence and early adulthood will increasingly determine their capacity to withstand shocks, sustain cohesion, generate innovation, defend institutions and act strategically under uncertainty.

Russia’s war against Ukraine exposes this challenge in its most acute form. It shows how quickly developmental conditions can be disrupted by displacement, insecurity, trauma, interrupted education, family separation, information attacks and long-term uncertainty. Though it is evident that more societies will need to protect youth development under conditions of instability, pressure and cognitive overload.

The central policy question is therefore not only how to respond to youth needs. It is how to protect the formation of human capability itself.

Adolescence and early adulthood are decisive periods for the development of identity, agency, emotional regulation, cognitive flexibility, moral judgement, belonging and future orientation. These capabilities are shaped by the quality of the environments in which young people grow: families, schools, universities, communities, digital spaces, public institutions, cultural narratives, peer networks and relationships with significant adults.

When these environments are safe, demanding, supportive and meaningful, they strengthen the capacity to learn, cooperate, create, take responsibility and act with purpose. When they are marked by chronic stress, fragmentation, manipulation or institutional neglect, they deplete the cognitive and emotional resources required for development.

This is why youth development must be treated as part of a country’s strategic infrastructure. Protecting it is not only a moral obligation; it is a condition of state capacity. A country that fails to protect the development of its young people weakens its future ability to govern, compete, recover and remain cohesive. A country that designs strong developmental systems expands the human capabilities on which its security, economy, democracy and social fabric depend.

The role of policy is not to manage young people, but to design systems that make development possible: reducing developmental burdens, strengthening relationships, creating safe and meaningful spaces, supporting identity and agency, and opening pathways into education, work, civic life, culture, innovation and public responsibility.

This is why we have developed this material on youth development. It brings together scientific evidence from neuroscience, psychology and social research to reframe youth development as a matter of strategic public policy, and to support institutions in moving from fragmented interventions towards systems that protect developmental potential and build the foundations of resilient, capable and future-oriented societies.

Mohyla Strategy Agency has invited three distinguished scholars — Emily Murphy (UC Law), Dylan Gee (Yale), and Susan Branje (Utrecht University) — to look at Ukraine's reconstruction from a scientific perspective. What follows are their voices. We hope that the intersection of these perspectives will map what a youth-centred architecture of national resilience can look like. 

- Valentyna Piontkovska, Head of Societal Competitiveness at Mohyla Strategy Agency, Ukraine

 

The Impact of War and Chronic Trauma on Youth Development: Adolescence as a Window of Opportunity

Exposure to war and chronic trauma can have profound effects on adolescents’ development and mental health 1. Stress exposure is a major risk factor for mental health disorders, and it can fundamentally shape how young people feel, think, and experience the world around them. Research on youth exposed to war and armed conflict consistently shows elevated rates of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and these effects can persist long into adulthood 2,3.

These consequences of trauma exposure are partly explained by changes in the neurobiological systems that support emotional learning, regulation, and stress responding4,5. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis plays a central role in coordinating stress responses, and chronic activation of the HPA axis can alter stress hormone levels and stress reactivity. In parallel, corticolimbic circuitry, which includes the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex, undergoes stress-related changes that affect emotion processing and regulation. These changes can include hyperactivity of the amygdala, altered hippocampal function, and weakened prefrontal connections that support the regulation of stress and emotion reactivity. Together, these changes can also influence how people respond to future stressors. In particular, past stress exposure increases vulnerability to future stressors through a process known as stress sensitization6,7.

Importantly, these same neurobiological systems are undergoing dynamic changes during adolescence. Among changes in HPA axis function, cortisol reactivity tends to increase in adolescence8. The amygdala, which develops early in life, shows elevated reactivity while prefrontal regions and their regulatory connections with the amygdala are still maturing9,10. This developmental state can heighten vulnerability to stress, helping to explain why adolescence is a peak period for the emergence of mental health disorders. In addition, the heightened plasticity of the developing brain in adolescence means that experiences that occur during this period can have particularly strong and lasting effects.

However, adolescence is not only a time of vulnerability. It is also a period of tremendous opportunity. The same plasticity that increases vulnerability to trauma can also increase responsiveness to positive influences, such as supportive relationships and effective interventions11,12. Social support can be particularly important during adolescence, when peers, family, and community play a central role in shaping identity development and well-being13,14. Adolescents are also incredibly capable of bold, creative, and socially driven action, including advocacy and civic engagement15. The biological state of the developing brain thus contributes to both risk and possibility. Understanding this paradox positions adolescence as a window of opportunity, when youth development programs and interventions can not only buffer against the harms of war and trauma, but actively foster developmental trajectories of positive growth, agency, and resilience in the face of adversity.

- Dylan G. Gee, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology, Yale University, The USA

 

Identity Formation in Settings of War and Migration

Identity formation in young people is strongly shaped by social context. For young people growing up abroad, in migration settings, or during wartime, this process becomes more complex because they often develop within multiple cultural systems at the same time. Rather than developing one fixed identity tied to a single nation or culture, they develop multiple connected identities and learn to adapt how they express themselves across situations while maintaining a coherent sense of self.

Multicultural contexts can both support and challenge identity development. Youth in supportive environments that allow multicultural integration integrate identities successfully. However, when young people experience discrimination, exclusion, political polarization and pressure to choose between cultures, they may feel that their identities are questioned or rejected. Such experiences can create tensions between who they are and want to be, and how they are perceived by others; in the balance of identity and belonging. These experiences may contribute to confusion, fragmentation, or loss of identity. Many youth report feelings of in-betweenness, partly belonging everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Forced migration can disrupt identity development, for example, due to ongoing uncertainty about asylum or residence status, and family separation. However, young people are capable of active meaning-making and identity construction in these circumstances. Supportive parents and peers, stable routines, opportunities for participation, and safe environments promote resilience and healthier identity development.

National identity often becomes especially important during wartime or geopolitical conflict. Identity remains relatively implicit in everyday life, but becomes particularly salient under conditions of transition, uncertainty, or threat. War represents an extreme form of collective uncertainty that increases the need for belonging, security, and collective meaning. During war, individuals become more aware of group membership because political narratives, media discourse, and social interactions sharply distinguish between “us” and “them.” In these circumstances, national identity offers continuity, shared meaning, and belonging. 

- Susan Branje, Department of Education and Pedagogy, Utrecht University, The Netherlands 

 

Collective Cognitive Capital: A Framework for State Investment in Youth Brain Health

States typically approach youth brain health through fragmented interventions: mental health services, nutrition programs, and educational initiatives operating independently. This treats young people's brains as targets of isolated programs rather than foundational societal resources.

A collective cognitive capital framework demands a different orientation. Just as physical infrastructure requires intentional investment and maintenance, so does society's cognitive capacity—the shared ability to think, solve problems, and collaborate. Young people's brains are not merely individual properties. They are the embodied foundation of collective intelligence.

This reframing has three crucial implications for policy. First, it demands coherence. Every decision about housing, environmental quality, education, technology, and social connection should be evaluated through a single lens: Does this protect or deplete our collective cognitive capital? Fragmented policies work at cross-purposes—investing in outdoor sports while tolerating air pollution, or funding mental health services while permitting housing instability.

Second, it justifies investment in essential infrastructure. States don't debate whether roads are "worth it"; they shouldn't debate whether protecting developing brains deserves protection. The question becomes how to invest wisely.

Third, it reveals systemic interdependencies. A child's brain develops through stable housing, clean water and air, nutrition, education, social connection, and trusted relationships: interconnected aspects of a single resource: conditions for collective cognition to flourish.

For states rebuilding policy frameworks, particularly Ukraine, this shift is urgent. Every reconstruction decision is an opportunity to build collective cognitive capital intentionally, rather than perpetuating systems that treat young people's brains as afterthoughts.

The implication is clear: young people's brains are not marginal to state interests. They are the central infrastructure. A state that protects and invests in collective cognitive capital—recognizing it as foundational to all other societal pursuits—will build a society capable of thriving through whatever challenges emerge.

- Emily Marphy, Professor of Law, Harry and Lillian Hastings Research Chair, University of California, College of the Law, the USA

 

Youth as Co-Architects: From Adolescent Science to Ukraine's Resilience Strategy

Taken together, the three perspectives above outline a tripartite model of youth development: what unfolds in the brain, how it shapes identity formation, and how the state either sustains or erodes that process.

Time as Policy

Young people in Ukraine today are living through both traumatisation and accelerated maturation. Neuroplasticity, which is itself placed at risk under such conditions, develops through lived experience. The question is what environments we design to activate that experience, or to soften the crisis. Every year of delay, of waiting for the war to end, means lost opportunities tied to the open window of neuroplasticity. Programmes involving adult mentors and caregivers are particularly important during this period. Yet, wartime conditions make them harder to sustain: mothers are exhausted, fathers are at the front, and teachers are displaced.

Self-Definition as Strategy

The same plasticity that adapts a young person's brain to a threatening environment also shapes the answer to the question "Who am I?" This process unfolds in two phases: exploration, when an adolescent tries on different versions of the self — professional roles, values, modes of belonging — and commitment, when one of those tracks consolidates as a foundation.

In Ukraine over the past two decades, this trajectory has been compressed by a series of accelerations: the Maidan of 2004, the Maidan of 2013–2014, partly the events of 2025, and the full-scale invasion of 2022. Each wave, hitting young people in their formative years, tightened the exploration phase and at the same time expanded the commitment phase.

For the generation that left the country because of the war, the dynamic looks different. The exploration phase widens, because these young people live inside two cultures simultaneously. At the intersection of these frames lies the risk of a state in which no commitment fully consolidates. In that case, a young person may return to Ukraine physically without having developed a stable sense of identity. This is precisely why Ukraine's domestic youth policy and its diaspora development strategy require a shared logic.

Institutions as Capital

The direction of that logic is set, day by day, by concrete institutions: the school, the university, the centre for internally displaced persons, the employment centre. How these institutions are built determines whether they accumulate the country's collective cognitive capital. Under conditions of instability, adolescents look for ways around the state's bureaucratic barriers — a search that often pushes them towards identity-formation in informal civic spaces and, in some cases, towards radicalisation. By contrast, expanding their agentic capacity over their own lives — rather than constantly being nudged by adults towards the "right" decisions — positions young people as authors of their own development and of the country's.

At a moment when Ukrainian institutions are adapting to EU standards, the logic of collective cognitive capital can be embedded into the foundations of that restructuring. Integrating all three components — adolescent neuroplasticity, the formation of identity, and the accumulation of collective cognitive capital — into a single model of youth development in Ukraine becomes the starting point at which young people emerge as co-architects of the state's future. 

- Halyna Pyryn, Competitive Society Analyst at Mohyla Strategy Agency, Ukraine

 

References 

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