Ukraine invasion triggers push to cut science ties with Russia

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a 24 March post on FYI, which reports on federal science policy. Both FYI and Physics Today are published by the American Institute of Physics.

Now one month in, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has inflicted enormous damage on Ukrainian science and upended collaborations with Russian scientists as nations work to isolate the Russian government.

Scientific institutions around the world have unequivocally extended support to Ukrainian scientists, but many are grappling with how to treat partnerships with Russia, particularly given the historical regard for science as a haven for peaceful international exchange. Some countries, such as Germany, rapidly froze bilateral science partnerships. Others, including the US, have not taken a national position.

Frozen relations have primarily affected collaborations at the institutional level, but scientific journals have also faced calls from some Ukrainian scientists to boycott submissions from Russian authors. So far, various publishers have indicated that they have no plans to do so.

Scientists seek refuge

Ukrainian scientists have been forced to abandon their work en masse, and universities have been severely damaged as Russia lays siege to major cities in southern Ukraine and the country’s eastern borderlands. For instance, the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, which houses a recently built neutron source, has been badly damaged .

To aid refugee scientists, last week the European Union created a portal of information about support programs that have been started across Europe. One week earlier, the US National Academy of Sciences launched an initiative to help raise funds for scientists and their families to resettle in neighboring Poland.

In addition, a group of US scientific societies has petitioned the White House and Congress to expedite visas for Ukrainian scientists. (Several AIP Member Societies are signatories of the letter.)

The American Physical Society (APS), one of the signatories, held a special session at its annual March Meeting two weeks ago to receive feedback on its response to date and to hear from its members on how they have been affected by the war. Several scientists who are originally from Ukraine shared harrowing stories from colleagues caught up in the war and pressed APS to do more.

One speaker sought to counter the view that the vast majority of Russian scientists oppose the war, an idea that gained traction after open letters condemning the conflict were signed by many Russian scientists. The attendee cited in part a letter in support of the war signed by the leaders of more than 200 Russian universities.

Addressing that letter and the prospect of APS journals boycotting Russian scientists, APS CEO Jonathan Bagger remarked, “We do not know [who has] been forced to sign those letters. We have a tradition of not supporting boycotts in this country [and at the] American Physical Society. This has been the tradition throughout many other terrible situations in history as well.” He noted, however, that the APS board of directors is continuing to deliberate on the matter.

Europe restricts science ties

Across the world, national governments and scientific institutions have been forced to weigh the degree to which sanctions against Russia should extend to scientific exchanges. The issue has been most pronounced in Europe.

Within a day of the invasion, Germany imposed its freeze on bilateral science partnerships. A host of European countries soon followed suit, and some of the restrictions have been expanded to include Belarus, given its role as a staging ground for the invasion. The European Union also suspended Russia’s participation in its flagship science grant programs, Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020.

Germany’s federal research ministry clarified its restrictions last week, according to reporting by the publication Science|Business, saying it would halt all its research collaborations involving “technology and know-how transfer” while granting nongovernmental institutions leeway to determine whether to sever ties.

The European Space Agency has suspended most cooperation with Russian space agency Roscosmos, derailing the scheduled launch of the ExoMars mission in September and disrupting plans for other launches and missions that rely on Russian-built equipment.

CERN, the Europe-led particle-physics lab, has suspended Russia’s “observer” status, which allowed it to attend lab governance meetings, and has barred CERN scientists from participating on scientific committees of institutions in Russia and Belarus. CERN has also prohibited new collaborations with Russian institutions but will allow scientists from Russia to continue working at the lab.

Although Russia is not a CERN member state, it has maintained formal ties with CERN since 1967 , when the lab was regarded as a locus for cooperation during the Cold War. Currently, more than 1100 scientists affiliated with Russian institutions are involved in the lab’s experimental program.

The situation is more complicated for the ITER fusion facility under construction in France, for which Russia is one of the founding members. A prominent European Union lawmaker has called for Russia to be kicked out of ITER, but the founding agreement for ITER has no expulsion mechanism .

Russia is also a major partner in the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL), which began operations in 2017, and the under-construction Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research, both located in Germany. Both facilities have announced that they are freezing collaboration with Russian institutions, although it is unclear whether Russia can be completely excluded. In a statement released last week, leaders of the laser facility wrote that they “will not start new agreements with Russian institutions and will suspend existing ones, while respecting the legal obligations of European XFEL.”

Some governments and institutions outside Europe have also announced blanket restrictions on scientific cooperation. For instance, the Australian National University has suspended all ties with Russian institutions, and Canada has instructed its science agencies to “refrain” from starting new collaborations with Russia while allowing individual interactions to continue.

Canada’s science ministry explained in a statement, “Recognizing the historic role that scientists, academics and researchers have played in defending freedom from tyranny, we do not call for a broad ban on collaborations with individual Russian researchers. However, we have asked the research granting agencies to implement strict measures to prohibit funding for research collaborations that could further the interests of Vladimir Putin’s regime.”

US stance unclear

US science agencies have not announced their stance on collaborations with Russia. Contacted by FYI, the Department of Energy Office of Science declined to comment, and NSF referred questions to the State Department’s bureau for scientific affairs, which also declined to comment. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy declined an interview request but indicated in a statement last week that it is “not aware that any federal grants have been canceled.”

Cooperation between the countries, however, had already chilled over the past decade, particularly following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. For instance, NASA restricted interactions with Russia, except for the joint operation of the International Space Station (ISS), in response to the annexation. Since the Ukraine invasion, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin has made a series of belligerent remarks regarding the US that suggest the partnership is under strain. Nevertheless, NASA reports that the ISS is continuing to operate smoothly, and today a US astronaut accompanied Russian cosmonauts on a Soyuz capsule returning to Earth.

In the wake of the Crimea annexation, the US began ratcheting up targeted sanctions and export controls on Russia. More recently, some Russian research institutes, among them the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, have been singled out for export restrictions. Since the invasion, those measures have become much more severe, with export controls expanded to semiconductors, telecommunications, lasers and sensors, and the oil and gas sector, among other areas. Those restrictions are aimed at hobbling Russia’s industrial capacity in high technology, but they have also hit academic research, particularly as various major scientific equipment manufacturers have halted certain deliveries to Russia, at least in part due to the new policies.

Although the US government has not included scientific exchanges in its sanctions, some universities have taken steps on their own, including MIT, which terminated a partnership with the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology that it launched a decade ago to help build research capacity in Russia.

At the same time, there have been calls from some prominent US scientists to maintain links with colleagues in Russia, including from physicists John Holdren and Neal Lane, who respectively were science advisers to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Last week Holdren and Lane joined three other scientists in warning that cutting ties across the board “would be a serious setback to a variety of Western and global interests and values.”

The group also proposed that Russian scientists working outside Russia not be forcibly repatriated when their visas expire, saying they may “face not only isolation from their Western colleagues but also, very possibly, persecution.”