On May 29, 2026, under the chairmanship of the President of the NAS of Ukraine, academician Anatoliy Zahorodniy, the next meeting of the Presidium of the NAS of Ukraine took place. The focus of the participants was on the development of the resort economy and rehabilitation sector, as well as new materials and technologies for high-temperature joints in modern mechanical engineering.
The war sharply increased the need for rehabilitation, along with attention to natural resources that could become the basis for the development of modern resort and restorative infrastructure in Ukraine. This was the subject of the report by the Deputy Director of the Institute of Market and Economic-Ecological Research of the NAS of Ukraine, Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine Nina Khumarova, titled "Natural Healing Assets in the Development of the Resort Economy."
The speaker emphasized that Ukraine has a unique natural potential for the development of rehabilitation and wellness services. According to her, the country hosts almost all types of natural healing resources found in Europe: hundreds of mineral water springs, deposits of therapeutic muds, bishofites and ozokerite, significant recreational areas, a sea coastline, and favorable climatic conditions.
At the same time, Nina Khumarova noted, these resources are still mostly viewed as natural objects rather than full-fledged economic assets. Due to the lack of modern evaluation and accounting mechanisms, their real value often remains underestimated. In her opinion, integrating natural healing assets into the economic planning system could create new opportunities for community development, investment attraction, and the formation of long-term income sources.
The speaker paid special attention to European approaches to natural capital management. She stressed that the country's recovery should be based on the principles of "green recovery" and sustainable use of natural resources, and that the development of resort areas should combine economic efficiency with ecosystem preservation.
According to Nina Khumarova, this topic is particularly important for local communities. Today, they often bear the main burden related to the operation of resort infrastructure but do not always receive corresponding economic benefits. Therefore, one of the key tasks is to create mechanisms that will allow communities to fully utilize the potential of their natural resources for their own development.
In summary, the scientist emphasized that natural healing assets can become an important element of Ukraine's post-war recovery, combining the tasks of population rehabilitation, territorial development, investment attraction, and preservation of the state's natural capital.
The proposed vision of the role of natural healing resources in the country's post-war recovery sparked lively interest among the meeting participants.
The discussion of the report involved the director of the trade union sanatorium "Khmilnyk," Doctor of Economics Oleksandr Halachenko, the director of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Medical Rehabilitation and Balneology of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, Doctor of Medical Sciences Kostyantyn Babov, and the academic secretary of the Economics Department of the NAS of Ukraine, academician Valeriy Heyets.
The participants emphasized that in the conditions of war and the future reconstruction of the country, the resort sector acquires new significance as a component of the rehabilitation system, human capital restoration, and economic resilience of the state. It was noted that Ukraine has significant natural healing potential, which can become an important competitive advantage in the development of modern rehabilitation and wellness services.
The discussion participants supported the approach proposed in the report to consider natural healing resources not only as objects of protection but also as economic assets requiring modern management mechanisms and integration into the territorial development system. The need to improve the regulatory framework, create conditions for attracting investments, develop public-private partnerships, and wider use of digital tools in resort sector management was also emphasized.
Special attention was paid to the role of the resort-rehabilitation complex in the healthcare system and issues of coordinating state, public, and market mechanisms of its functioning. According to the participants, the presented research lays an important scientific foundation for forming a modern model of the development of Ukraine's resort economy.
The next report was dedicated to the materials science aspects of creating modern high-temperature joints for energy mechanical engineering.
About new materials and technologies necessary for the operation of gas turbine engines under extreme conditions, reported the head of the department of physico-chemical processes of brazing at the E.O. Paton Institute of Electric Welding of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Technical Sciences Svitlana Maksymova. She presented research results outlined in the report "Vacuum Brazing of High-Chromium Heat-Resistant Nickel Alloys."
The speaker noted that such alloys are used for manufacturing and repairing critical components of gas turbine engines that operate at high temperatures, under significant mechanical loads, and in aggressive environments. At the same time, they belong to the category of difficult-to-weld materials, so the search for effective technologies for their joining is one of the important tasks of modern materials science.
Svitlana Maksymova paid particular attention to the problem of import substitution of specialized solders, a significant part of which previously came from Russian sources. According to her, having domestic materials and technologies is of strategic importance for Ukrainian gas turbine engineering both for manufacturing new products and for repair and restoration of turbine equipment.
The response to these challenges was the development of new domestic soldering materials and their application technologies.
During the research, scientists from the Institute of Electric Welding developed a series of new multicomponent solders and thoroughly studied their behavior during high-temperature brazing. A complex of experimental and computational studies made it possible to determine optimal material compositions and technological process modes for various types of heat-resistant nickel alloys.
The presented results demonstrated high mechanical properties of the created joints, particularly during operation at temperatures up to 900 °C. The developed materials and technology have already undergone full pilot-industrial testing at the State Enterprise "Gas Turbine Construction Research and Production Complex 'Zorya-Mashproekt'," where their effectiveness was confirmed during the manufacturing and repair of gas turbine engine units.
According to the speaker, work is currently underway to organize industrial production of new high-temperature solders, which opens prospects for their wide implementation in the energy and shipbuilding mechanical engineering sectors of Ukraine.
The presented results aroused significant interest among the meeting participants and became the subject of further discussion.
The discussion of the report involved the head of the laboratory "Contact Phenomena and Brazing of Non-Metallic Materials" at the I.M. Frantsevich Institute for Problems of Materials Science of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Chemical Sciences Vitaliy Krasovskyi, acting chief engineer of LLC "Lutsk Repair Plant 'Motor'" Yuriy Husev, chief researcher at the National Cancer Institute of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine Eduard Stakhovskyi, and academic secretary of the Materials Science Department of the NAS of Ukraine, academician Ihor Krivtsun.
The discussion participants emphasized the broad possibilities of applying modern brazing technologies in energy mechanical engineering, aviation, defense, and medicine. In particular, the importance of the technologies developed at the Institute of Electric Welding for manufacturing and repairing gas turbine engine units was noted, where brazing is often the most reliable and sometimes the only possible method for creating high-quality joints.
A separate aspect of the discussion concerned the application of brazing technologies in medicine. Examples were given of the use of high-temperature brazing in creating new medical instruments for minimally invasive treatment of oncological diseases.
As Eduard Stakhovskyi noted, cooperation between the National Cancer Institute and the Institute of Electric Welding has made it possible to develop experimental samples of instruments for modern methods of local tumor destruction, which opens prospects for reducing treatment times and increasing its effectiveness.
Summarizing the discussion, Ihor Krivtsun noted that modern brazing combines fundamental scientific research with solving specific technological tasks. The development of new solders and technologies for various materials is an important direction of work at the Institute of Electric Welding, whose results are already being applied in industry, medicine, and the security and defense sector.
At the end of the meeting, members of the Presidium of the NAS of Ukraine considered a number of personnel and current issues.
Photo: Press Service of the NAS of Ukraine
