Xi'an's Og

A call for solidarity from the President of the National Academy of Sciences (HAH) of Ukraine as a letter in Nature. To help Ukraine scientists to relocate in European countries, if temporarily, #scienceforukraine is posting available positions. Worldwide. In a tribune, Nature has also opened a debate on whether or not “a comprehensive and worldwide boycott of all Russian research [should be enforced], and scientific journals [should] refuse to consider papers by researchers from Russia”. Reflecting on an earlier call from Ukraine’s scientific community to a similar effect, albeit limited to Russian Federation citizens getting access to EU grants [this is already in effect], academic mobility programs [as well], and to journal editorships. And to run international scientific events [like the ICM and EMS 2022 meetings]. While a complete boycott would add to the other sanctions adopted by some countries towards stopping the war, sanctions that impact the ordinary citizen more than the ruling nomenklatura, I doubt it would have any [short-term] significant effect: The Russian Science Foundation has already dropped its requirement to publish in indexed journals outside Russia. It would also most difficult to implement in practice (although I seem to remember SIAM journals rejecting papers co-signed by Iranian authors at some point…)