Human geography in Ukraine: problems of development and priority research directions

The problems of development of scientific schools of human geography in Ukraine are determined. It is shown that contemporary human geography in Ukraine is a methodologically formed science with its own theoretical and methodological apparatus, which under the current conditions should be aimed at solving the applied problems regarding the improvement of the socio- territorial organization in Ukraine.The article analyses the different functional aspects of development of human geography in Ukraine. Among the main problems that hinder the development of scientific schools, and there- fore the science in general, are the following: individualized activity of scientific schools without specific purpose, partial realization of their contribution to all-school social geography, and contribution to the world of science; the problem of definition , which is as- sociated with the use of simultaneous usage of different terms for the science ;«economic and social geography», «socio-economic geography», «social geography»; the problem of social differentiation, geography and lack of a pivotal system of logically completed laws of science that could integrate different paradigms and research areas; lack of implementation of applied science functions     and etc. Considerable attention is paid to the prospects of comprehension of human geography related to improvement of the theo- retical basis in accordance with the realities of the beginning of XXI century, emphasis is placed on applied aspects of science and avoidance of pointless abstraction.The strategic goal of socio-geographical science is the determination of economic, demographic, social, political and environmental capacities of the geographic shell, justification of rational parameters of regional and global nature management, identification of the main trends of technological, sectoral and territorial development of the economy of Ukraine and its regions.It is proved that the main tasks of the science are also studies of the quality of life of the population; improvement of the structure of production and its transfer to an innovative level; definition and achievement of the optimal social, functional-branch and territorial structure of the economy; optimizing the structure of economic, social, political and other ties. At the regional and local levels, priorities include the problems of nature use and nature conservation, the development of depressed regions, the justification and implementation of regional economic, social, demographic and environmental policies. The key to solving these problems from the methodological point of view is the substantiation of the general theory of regional studies taking into account the diversity of the territorial organization of society.