Faculty and Research

On December 1, 2025, partners from Ukraine, Poland, and the LBJ School of Public Affairs convened for the seminar “Ukrainian Village on the Way to the European Union: From Data to Policy Recommendations,” an intensive dialogue focused on the strategic challenges facing Ukraine’s rural communities amid full-scale war and the country’s path toward European Union accession. The seminar moved deliberately from evidence to action—grounding discussion in current conditions in rural Ukraine and translating analysis into policy-relevant recommendations for recovery and long-term resilience.

A new research study led by Erin Lentz finds that the world’s leading system for classifying acute food insecurity systematically underestimates the true scale of global hunger. The research and analysis concludes that one in five people experiencing acute hunger may be going uncounted.

For his work to understand why climate change leads to negative security consequences in some places and not others, Joshua W. Busby, professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, will receive the 2026 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Busby presented these ideas in his book, “States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security.”