Zolotarova, Oksana

Oksana Zolotarova is a PhD Fellow at UNU-CRIS and the Brussels School of Governance (BSOG). During her PhD Fellowship at UNU-CRIS, Oksana will primarily work on the project “Designing Effective State Aid for Ukraine’s Green Transition: A Policy Pilot for Post-War Energy Resilience and EU Integration” (GREEN-START-UA) within the Economic Interactions Cluster and Regions and Cities Governance Lab. This project, led by Prof. Caroline Buts, aims to design context-sensitive state aid schemes that both accelerate Ukraine’s green energy transition and strengthen its post-war resilience, while ensuring alignment with EU state aid law and governance frameworks. The GREEN-START-UA project will explore how targeted aid can support energy independence and regional development in EU candidate countries, with a comparative focus on the enlargement process and the broader regional integration agenda.

Oksana Zolotarova has a uniquely interdisciplinary profile combining engineering, economic analysis, and European integration—an excellent match for UNU-CRIS’s focus on regional integration, sustainable development, and green transition. With more than 15 years of experience in customs policy, trade facilitation, and academic programme development, she has demonstrated a strong capacity for both applied policy work and academic research. Her recent shift towards investigating the design and evaluation of state aid policy reflects a timely and strategic redirection, aligned with Ukraine’s EU accession objectives and global concerns such as energy independence and sustainable governance in the light of current geopolitical events related to Ukraine.

Oksana Zolotarova holds a Candidate of Sciences (Engineering) degree and an Advanced Master’s in European Integration from the Brussels School of Governance. As a Policy Officer (Trainee) at the European Commission’s DG EAC, she gained first-hand knowledge of EU institutional processes, strategic investment frameworks, and stakeholder-driven policy design. Her involvement in the EU-funded project EU AEO Program: Implementation in Ukraine (101085558 – EUAEOUA – ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH) further strengthened her expertise in regulatory approximation and institutional capacity building.

Framed within UNU-CRIS’s mission, Oksana's current research addresses shifting paradigms in cross-border regulatory alignment and multi-level governance in transitional and post-conflict settings. By embedding the research within a multiscalar policy context and aligning it with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda—particularly SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions), and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) – GREEN-START-UA links academic inquiry with practical policy relevance.

Some of the publications relevant to the GREEN-START-UA project

2024 Harnessing Renewable Energy for Sustainable Economic Growth and Environmental Resilience