Seldom Has Politics Superseded the Pursuit of Scientific Discovery and Sharing

The last two times scientists and academics stared across a political divide happened during The Cold War, and before that in World War Two. Even when politicians and countries have sparred, pursuing scientific truths has been a shared experience across academia and political boundaries. At the height of the First World War, scientists in both camps continued to collaborate on pure research into physics, chemistry, and biomedicine. But not now with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Outer Space Cooperation on the Line

The divisions being drawn are here on Earth and in outer space. Dmitri Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, in a tirade against the United States threatened to let the International Space Station (ISS) crash to Earth landing a 500-ton object on the United States, or India, or even China. He noted that sanctions against Russia could lead to this scenario. He further stated that because the ISS doesn’t fly over Russia it would not be endangered. This was followed by a statement declaring that NASA will have to fly to the ISS on broomsticks in the future because Russia was stopping the sale of rocket engines to the American space agency.

NASA wasn’t the only target of Rogozin’s anger. An upcoming OneWeb launch of telecommunication satellites to join a growing constellation in low-Earth orbit was being held to ransom as Rogozin demanded the company ensure that none of its channels would include anti-Russian programming. OneWeb cancelled the launch contract.

Another project, the European Space Agency-Roscosmos joint venture to put a rover on Mars was delayed as Rogozin ended the agency’s contract to use the French Guiana launch site later this year. As a result, the project is delayed for another two years.

NASA’s response has been muted insisting that the relationship with Roscosmos has not changed in the maintenance and provisioning of the ISS. And Europe and OneWeb have expressed disappointment in Roscosmos’ actions.

Clearly, the status quo has changed in outer space.

Cooperative Academic Research Ending

The latest severing of relationships comes from academia. This time it is not Russia taking the lead but rather Europe. On March 4th, the European Commission announced all ongoing projects in research, science and innovation involving Russia are suspended including payments to existing contracts. It also means that the flagship 95 billion Euro research and innovation fund known as Horizon Europe no longer includes Russia.

Mariya Gabriel, a member of the Commission, is quoted in the latest issue of University World News stating, “Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine is an attack on freedom, democracy and self-determination, on which cultural expression, academic and scientific freedom, and scientific cooperation are based. As a result, we have decided not to engage in further cooperation projects in research and innovation.”

Ongoing cooperation with Ukrainian scientists and researchers remains in place for both Horizon Europe and Euratom, the European Atomic Energy Community (see ITER picture above) while five Russian research organizations and four specific Horizon Europe projects have been impacted.

This announcement follows Germany’s February 25th freeze on cooperating with Russian scientists and academics in higher education and research, and Denmark’s March 2nd call to all European universities and research facilities to suspend programs with both Russia and Belarus. A separate March 4th announcement from the Netherlands Association of Universities of Applied Sciences has also suspended education and research partnerships with Russia and Belarus. But the European University Association (EUA) has not joined them in a blanket condemnation deciding to review all joint projects on a case-by-case basis for the moment. But the EUA has put out an announcement that its members will no longer collaborate with any Russian government laboratory or agency.

The United States and Canada have yet to join in severing academic and research ties with Russia. I found only one announcement, that coming from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which ended more than a decade of research cooperation with the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow, affecting 9 ongoing projects. For the rest of North American academia, universities have largely issued statements to assist Ukrainian students studying in both countries and have expressed sympathy for academics and people put in danger by the Russian invasion.

The severing of academic links has always been seen as an extreme response to political and military events. A Belgian lawyer quoted in University World argues that the response by European academics and scientists is akin to mimicking Vladimir Putin’s behaviour in Ukraine. That analogy doesn’t hold water.

Would it have served western academia prior to and during the early stages of World War Two when Germany occupied the Sudetenland, and then went on to invade Poland, to continue scientific and academic cooperative research with German universities? Or after France was defeated, would it have served the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom to continue scientific and academic cooperation with universities in Vichy France? Obviously, the answer to both scenarios is no. But some in Europe have raised concern that cutting funding to Russian academics, particularly individuals who are against the war, and who have come out openly against it are at financial risk as well as the potential to be arrested and imprisoned for their opposition.