The article identifies the potential for improving the educational sphere within the Lviv agglomeration through enhanced cooperation between territorial communities. Areas of dissatisfaction with the quality of education among residents of the studied communities are outlined. The key challenges faced by these communities, particularly concerning educational accessibility, economic efficiency, and qualified staffing that can be addressed by collaboration are discussed in the article. The need for strategic partnerships across municipal boundaries is increasingly important. By pooling resources, sharing knowledge, and coordinating efforts, communities can achieve a higher standard of education that benefits all stakeholders. The quantitative and qualitative indicators of the development of the educational sphere in the communities of the Lviv agglomeration are analyzed in the article. They confirm the uneven access to quality educational services. The first major issue explored is the accessibility of education. The article outlines the disparities in access to education across different parts of the Lviv agglomeration, especially between urban centers and rural areas. It highlights the uneven distribution of schools, particularly high-quality educational institutions, which causes an imbalance in the level of students’ knowledge. The study suggests that through coordinated inter-community efforts, such as joint education centers and shared digital education platforms, students from underserved areas could gain better access to schooling, ensuring equal learning opportunities across the region. Economic efficiency is another central theme of the article. By working together, communities can share infrastructure, optimize spending, and even co-invest in large-scale educational projects. This kind of collaborative financial management could result in better outcomes without increasing the financial burden on individual communities. The article also addresses the persistent issue of qualified teachers, which is a challenge in many smaller communities. By fostering collaboration between municipalities, a solution can be found in the form of shared staffing programs, professional development initiatives, and collective recruitment efforts. This could create a more flexible and mobile workforce, allowing qualified educators to work across multiple jurisdictions, thus improving the overall quality of education. Particular attention in the article is focused on the coordination of efforts at the institutional level and the creation of a coordination council to assess the cooperation potential of Lviv agglomeration communities. The article suggests involving all participants of the educational process from each community. 

Lviv agglomeration, partnership of communities, educational services, potential of partnership of territorial communities, effectiveness of the educational sphere 

The important role of the transport and logistics system and its infrastructure in realizing the export potential of Ukraine’s regions in the context of a protracted war and post-war recovery requires well-considered public policy measures to support them and further develop them. The measures should aim to increase the regions’ resilience to the challenges of war and lay the foundations for long-term growth. Increasing the sustainability of transport and logistics infrastructure is possible by combining mechanisms in government policy to create favorable conditions for the restoration of each of its structural elements with tools to stimulate their development in accordance with the priority areas of realizing the export potential of Ukraine’s regions. Based on the results of a comprehensive analysis of the transport and logistics infrastructure efficiency, the article offers a set of the state policy measures of its support and development in the regional socio-economic systems of Ukraine. The main directions of such a policy, in our opinion, should include the expansion of opportunities for realizing the export potential of Ukraine’s regions; diversification of transport and logistics infrastructure development in several complementary priority areas as an element of state economic security; integration of Ukraine’s transport and logistics infrastructure into the world transport system and intensification of Ukraine’s cooperation with international financial organizations to attract international financial assistance for modernization. Ukraine’s active European integration is an important factor in shaping the basis for a qualitative transformation and modernization of the transport and logistics infrastructure, which will open wider access to the EU market and facilitate the use of its opportunities to increase and more effectively realize the export potential of Ukraine’s regions, develop their transport and logistics infrastructure in accordance with EU norms and standards, and expand mutually beneficial partnerships with EU countries in the field of transport and logistics based on national interests. The fullest possible use of the transport and logistics infrastructure in the process of realizing the export potential of Ukraine’s regions will contribute to the rapid recovery and stable development of Ukraine’s economy and increase its competitiveness both in the domestic and foreign markets. 

transport and logistics system, transport and logistics infrastructure, export potential of the region, border crossing capacity, containerization of freight transportation 

Implementation of elements of the circular economy concept in the economic models of large cities creates the preconditions for building environmentally sustainable urban socio-economic systems, the transition to circular thinking, and the creation of new opportunities for economic growth. According to the results of the analysis of the structural transformations efficiency in the economy of Western region’s large cities, the paper argues that their socio-economic systems enter the initial stages of transition from the traditional linear model of the economic system to the system based on the concept of the circular economy. The paper defines that the level of the circular economy development in the Western region’s large cities is insufficient due to a number of regulatory, socio-economic, and technological ones. Concentrated efforts of government and business to reduce and overcome these obstacles can play a positive role in shaping the circular economy in the regions of Ukraine, and the intensification of technology transfer and best practices, new methods of product and material design can significantly enhance its development. Transformation of the linear model of Ukrainian large cities’ economies towards the circular economy should take place in stages in the form of short-, medium- and long-term measures system within a specialized state strategy for the development of the circular economy, because in today's conditions the country has not formed the appropriate institutional, infrastructural, technological, and socio-cultural conditions for a rapid and high-quality transition to a circular economy. Within the step-by-step scenario of Ukraine’s linear economic system transformation into a circular one, the paper offers the Roadmap for the construction of a circular economy, which combines target guidelines and a step-by-step plan for its formation. The Roadmap for the formation of a circular economy in Ukraine combines the strategy, targets, and development plan of the process, outlining its main stages in a certain period of time. 

circular economy, sustainable development, waste disposal, circular business model, waste-free consumption model 

Based on the assessment of the features and basic preconditions for the shadowing of ICT services in the regions of Ukraine, it is substantiated that a significant level of its shadowing, especially in the IT sector, is an unfavorable factor that limits the positive effects and structural changes in Ukraine’s socio-economic system and also hinders the most complete and effective realization of its development potential. It is established that lack of effective judicial system and specialized standard and legal base, and also the low level of ICT services domestic market development and generally low investment appeal of our country’s economic system remains the main obstacles which hinder the achievement of the high level of the Ukrainian ICT sector development and increase in competitiveness of its services on a global scale. It leads not only to the deepening lag of the ICT services sector of Ukraine from its main competitors on a global scale, but also to maintaining a high level of its shadowing, which negatively affects the prospects of the national economy and increasing the efficiency of its potential in ensuring economic development of the regions of Ukraine. The maximum positive impact of the ICT services sector in the development of the economic system is possible only if it, in addition to increasing its competitiveness in the global IT market, will contribute to the growth and improvement of the domestic IT market through the implementation of experience gained in the economic systems of developed countries in creation and introduction of modern innovative technologies, products, methods of organization and management of business processes. The positive impact of the ICT services sector on the internal IT market development in Ukraine is significantly limited by numerous regulatory and economic barriers, which together with the high level of the shadow economy, both in the ICT services sector and in the economic system of Ukraine in general, noticeably reduce its investment attractiveness for foreign and domestic investors. According to the assessment of the shadow economy level in the ICT services sector of Ukraine in 2013-2018 by the method of unprofitable enterprises, the interdependence between changes in the level of the shadow economy in ICT services sector and some parameters of its productivity in the economic system is defined. It allowed to find out the main reasons for the shadowing and the threats of its growth in the ICT services sector in Ukraine, and also to identify possible ways to overcome them in the near future. 

ICT services sector, ICT market, shadow economy, IT private entrepreneur, export of ICT services 

Modern dynamic development of the Ukrainian society and its integration into global social and economic space is followed by emergence of a wide range of problems (internal and external calls and threats of political and financial and economic nature; spatial deformations at the regional and local levels, growth of a fragmentariness and asymmetry in social and economic development of regions, areas, cities and rural territories, lack of systemic nature and coordination of all participants of regional development), the majority of which is especially sharply shown at the regional level. In this regard, there is a need to reveal the spatial development characteristics and problems of the cities and rural territories for Ukrainian regions, to identify their weaknesses and strengths, in order to determine the optimal mechanism for improving spatial development, which would in the future allow for efficient combining of the state and regional interests in the process of ensuring sustainable development of social and economic space and its regional subsystems. The basic spatial tendencies and characteristic features of socio-economic development of cities and rural territories of Zaporizhia region are highlighted, as well as the optimum mechanism of improvement of their spatial development taking into account regional specificity is outlined. The analysis of the main socio-economic and spatial development indicators allowed us to identify the main characteristics of the urbanization process in the region and its impact on the development of suburban areas. Ranging of cities and areas of the region by the level of social and economic development by means of an integrated index of economic development of the cities and districts of the Zaporizhia region based on quantitative and qualitative characteristics of various aspects of social and economic dynamics of their development is carried out. This approach allowed us to ensure the validity and methodological correctness of comparisons of cities and districts parameters in Zaporizhia region by partial integral indexes (economic, social and environmental), and also to determine the place of each of them by rating in the region, which allowed to reliably estimate the depth and extent of their socio-economic development differentiation. 

spatial development, socio-economic development, urbanization, monocentricity, old industrial region, index of economic development 

Nowadays the scientists and experts in agricultural business continue discussions about the agricultural holdings’ influence on the development of the territory they operate at, agrarian sector and economy in general. Indeed, activity of agricultural holdings in Ukraine is characterized both by significant number of advantages and by certain peculiar threats, and is accompanied by the range of internal flaws of this integrated agricultural business form. From this viewpoint, it is important to conduct thorough analysis and evaluation of the impact of financial and economic activity of agricultural holdings, especially in the context of maintaining the social and economic development of certain regions. The paper aims to evaluate the impact of agricultural holdings on social and economic development of Ukrainian regions. In order to analyze the impact of financial and economic activity of agricultural holdings on social and economic development of Ukrainian regions the authors calculated the integral agriculture development index for each oblast and analyzed the dependence between the productivity of agricultural production of large agrarian enterprises and this rate. The integral estimation of agricultural production development in Ukrainian regions was carried out for 2016 through standardization of the values of selected indicators against the reference value (according to the chosen methodics, the higher the integral rate shows the higher level of agriculture development). Calculations show that the input of agricultural holdings in the development is the strongest in Vinnytska oblast, where 6 out of 20 largest agricultural holdings by the volume of land bank operate. The impact of agricultural holdings on social and economic development of Kyivska, Cherkaska, Dnipropetrovska, Poltavska and Lvivska oblasts is also essential. Despite the low productivity of agricultural production of large agricultural companies in the southern oblasts (in particular, Odeska and Mykolayivska), the integral agriculture rate is rather high there, which is explained by trade capacity of these oblasts. The following oblasts are the leaders by the volumes of agricultural production: Vinnytska, Poltavska, Kyivska, Harkivska, Dnipropetrovska and Cherkaska, which corresponds to the largest presence of agricultural holdings in these regions. Agricultural lands were the most efficiently used in Volynska, Cherkaska and Vinnytska oblasts. Calculations also show the depressiveness of Donetska and Luhanska oblasts in terms of development of large agricultural enterprises and their input in social and economic development of the regions due to long-lasting political and economic crisis. 

agricultural holdings, social and economic development of regions, land bank, productivity of agricultural production, integral agriculture development index