In Russia, scientists are contending with boycotts and sanctions in response to their country’s actions. More widely, the crisis has created economic and political rifts that have already affected research in physics, space, climate science, food security, and energy. A prolonged conflict could foment a significant realignment of scientific-collaboration patterns. Here are seven ways in which the war is already affecting research, and could change it for years or decades to come.
Ukraine’s research in crisis
In March, Olena Prysiazhna, a plasma physicist at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, fled Ukraine’s conflict for the Netherlands. From there, Prysiazhna, like many Ukrainian scientists, has gone to extraordinary lengths to continue her research and teaching — often lecturing online to people logging in from bomb shelters. She’s seen war become a daily reality for many researchers. “One of my students said his previous results got burnt,” she says.
Since Russia invaded in February, an estimated 4,900 civilians have died in Ukraine, some 6,000 have been injured and more than 5.6 million have left for countries in Europe, creating the region’s biggest refugee crisis in a generation. Another 6.3 million people are internally displaced. Among those affected are the country’s 95,000 or so researchers: around one-quarter of them — 22,000 — have fled the country, estimates George Gamota, a Ukraine-born physicist living in the United States who helped Ukraine to develop its scientific system after it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The war has demolished what had been a slowly modernizing research system that was beginning to integrate with European partners. Many universities and science centers have been badly damaged — the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology neutron source was bombed in March and June, for instance. It is likely to take years to restore the scientific infrastructure, said Steve Binkley, principal deputy director of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science, in an April letter encouraging grant-holders to host scientists affected by the conflict.
The US department is one of many organizations helping Ukrainian refugee scientists to continue their work. Neighboring countries such as Poland, which has taken in more than 1.2 million refugees, have been among the quickest to act: the Polish Academy of Sciences has supported hundreds of Ukrainian scholars. Poland is now Ukraine’s largest research partner, having overtaken Russia in 2019 (see ‘Ukraine’s international research ties’).
Within Ukraine, public-health researchers are concerned not only about the immediate loss of life and the health crises caused by the war but also about prolonged trauma. “A lot of people’s homes have been reduced to rubble,” says Margaret Harris, spokesperson for the World Health Organization’s Ukraine team. “There will be an enormous rise in the need for strong psychological care.”
Now that Russia has largely withdrawn to the east of the country, life — and research — is resuming in some areas, including Lviv, Kyiv, Dnipro, and Vinnytsia. But much of the country still has air-raid alerts every night, and bombs fall indiscriminately. Many people are worried that winter will bring a renewed military offensive by Russia, says Oleksiy Kolezhuk, a theoretical physicist who left his job at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in January (before the invasion) to teach in the United States and who currently has a temporary appointment in Mainz, Germany. Science and education are relatively low priorities, he says, but many hope that post-war rebuilding will offer an opportunity for Ukraine to redesign its scientific system and integrate more closely with Europe and the United States. “If we rebuild, we will use this opportunity for making a change,” he says. “But no one can predict when this effort will start.”
Russia becomes a pariah
Researchers in Russia, meanwhile, says that the reaction to the invasion is cutting their country off from international research and that many people have already left for better prospects elsewhere. European and US organizations have cut ties with Russian science, including canceling joint projects.
“People have been so disgusted by Russia’s actions that the normal slogans of science being international, and of researchers cooperating under all circumstances, have worn thin,” says Loren Graham, a US historian of science in Russia and emeritus professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who has been in contact with Russian researchers. “The morale of Russian intelligentsia is very low,” he adds.
Many Russian academics have signed letters condemning the war, although official bodies, such as the Russian Union of Rectors (which represents hundreds of rectors or presidents of Russian universities), have supported the invasion.
Sanctions restricting the movement of goods and money are affecting laboratory work, say Russia’s researchers. One scientist who left a post in Europe six years ago to build up a lab in St Petersburg says that crucial supplies of reagents and equipment have been cut off, collaborations with Western colleagues are strained and most of his young scientists want to leave. He is trying to help them do so. “It is disastrous,” says the scientist, who asked not to be named because of concern over political reprisals. “Everybody is in shock.”
Russia’s science foundation suggested in April that scientists seek “new funding partnerships” with nations including China, India, and South Africa, which have not publicly severed research links with the country. Graham thinks such a shift is likely, but Russian researchers still hope to reinstate links with US and European colleagues (see ‘Russia’s international research ties’).
Some scientists anticipate that the isolation of Russian researchers will continue for some time, setting the country’s science back 10 or 20 years and causing a huge brain drain of young scientists. Even if Russia were to withdraw tomorrow, too much damage has been done for scientific institutions that have severed their links to recommence their work with the country, especially with institutions that have backed the war, says Robert Feidenhans’l, an X-ray physicist at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Regarding the prospect of resuming ties, he says, “I don’t see this as an option.”
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