- Ratan Tata: Indian mogul who built a global powerhouse
- Rodgers rejects 'false' suggestions of role in Saleh dismissal
- One dead as storm Kirk tears through Spain, Portugal, France
- Indian business titan Ratan Tata dead at 86
- Lebanon facing 'catastrophic' situation as 600,000 displaced: UN
- US warns Israel not to repeat Gaza destruction in Lebanon
- Musk's X returns in Brazil after 40-day showdown with judge
- Call her savvy? Harris unleashes unconventional media blitz
- Lucian Freud 'masterpiece' fetches £13.9 million at London sale
- SoFi Stadium to hold next two CONCACAF Nations League finals
- McIlroy and DeChambeau set for PGA-LIV 'Showdown' in Vegas
- Fed minutes highlight divisions over rate cut decision
- Steve McQueen debuts new WWII film at London festival
- Run blitz edges India and South Africa closer to World Cup semi-finals
- Zelensky to court European leaders in drive for military aid
- Israel captain says 'difficult' to focus on football in time of war
- Macron to host Ukraine's Zelensky after meeting Ukrainian troops
- Root says 'many more to get' after England Test runs landmark
- India pile up World Cup high to rout Sri Lanka
- One year later, Israeli hostage family learns of loss
- Texans receiver Collins, Pats' safety Peppers out for NFL clash
- Biden-Netanyahu talk as Hezbollah, Israeli forces clash
- Musk's X available again in Brazil after 40-day ban
- Reddy stars as India crush Bangladesh to clinch T20 series
- Nobel winners hope protein work will spur 'incredible' breakthroughs
- What are proteins again? Nobel-winning chemistry explained
- Arch rivals Ghana, Nigeria drawn together in CHAN qualifying
- AI steps into science limelight with Nobel wins
- Trump lauds India's Modi as 'total killer'
- Wall Street, Europe rise as Chinese shares tumble
- Hunkering down for Hurricane Milton at Disney -- but first, a few rides
- Reddy, Rinku power India to 221-9 in second Bangladesh T20
- Overshooting 1.5C risks 'irreversible' climate impact: study
- Time running out in Florida to flee Hurricane Milton
- Demis Hassabis, from chess prodigy to Nobel-winning AI pioneer
- The long walk for water in the parched Colombian Amazon
- Biden-Netanyahu to talk as Hezbollah, Israeli forces clash
- France vows to step up drugs fight after police vehicles torched
- Air France says jet flew over Iraq during Iran attack on Israel
- Activists target Picasso work to protest Israel arms sales
- Let 'Emily in Paris' remain in Paris, Macron says
- Global stocks diverge as Chinese shares tumble
- Time runs out in Florida to flee Hurricane Milton
- Chad issues warning ahead of more devastating floods
- Record-breaking Root helps England dominate Pakistan in first Test
- German govt sees economy shrinking again in 2024
- Ex-UK soldier denies passing secrets to Iran intelligence
- Creator's death no bar to new 'Dragon Ball' products
- Three Kosovo Serbs on trial over 'secession plot' attack
- Van Gogh museum to launch Impressionism show
RBGPF | -2.48% | 59.33 | $ | |
SCS | 1.92% | 13.03 | $ | |
GSK | 5.54% | 40.25 | $ | |
BP | -0.16% | 31.98 | $ | |
NGG | -0.44% | 65.61 | $ | |
CMSC | -0.65% | 24.48 | $ | |
AZN | 0.82% | 77.505 | $ | |
BTI | 0.72% | 35.475 | $ | |
RYCEF | -1.01% | 6.9 | $ | |
RELX | 0.12% | 46.695 | $ | |
RIO | -0.47% | 66.35 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.29% | 24.78 | $ | |
VOD | 0.72% | 9.73 | $ | |
BCE | -0.57% | 33.32 | $ | |
BCC | 0.21% | 142.32 | $ | |
JRI | 0.34% | 13.205 | $ |
Russia-West scientific collaboration a casualty of Ukraine war
For neuroscience researcher Boris, "everything fell apart" a month ago, when Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent decades-long scientific cooperation with the West crashing back to Earth.
In response to sanctions and moral outrage at Moscow's war, scientific institutes around the world swiftly cut off ties with Russia, including the European Space Agency, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and leading US university MIT.
International scientific collaboration that had long symbolised the world coming together in the aftermath of the Cold War -- particularly in space -- suddenly had to be scrapped, sending many projects back to the drawing board.
When the European Space Agency's director general Josef Aschbacher announced the end of cooperation with Russia, he called it an "agonising decision".
The decision spelled a long postponement for the ExoMars mission, which had planned to use a Russian rocket to put a European rover on Mars later this year to drill for signs of life.
Aschbacher said a launch was no longer possible until at least 2026 -- and that the ESA could now look to NASA for help.
It was as a huge blow for the thousands of scientists in Europe and Russia who had been working on the project for years -- and came after ExoMars had already been postponed for two years by the Covid-19 pandemic.
- 'Cut off from the world' -
For Boris, an American of Russian origin living in France who did want to give his surname, 10 years of work was lost overnight when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
He said he had founded a research centre in Russia to create "a unique cross-border model in the field of neuroscience", in which Russian students could travel to different laboratories across Europe.
He told AFP the project has not been officially cancelled, but "everything is blocked," in part because PhD students in Russia can no longer pay for their work due to financial sanctions.
Other students have fled Russia after being threatened with being arrested for protesting against the war.
"We talk to each other every day via Skype or Zoom... but we are lost, the war is beyond us," said Boris, whose parents left the USSR in the 1980s as Russia waged war on Afghanistan.
"For students who have not experienced the Soviet era, it is unimaginable to live in a country cut off from the world. They were truly European in their minds."
Nearly 8,000 Russian scientists and academics signed an open letter earlier this month condemning the war after the International Congress of Mathematicians scheduled to be held in Saint Petersburg in July was called off.
"The many years spent strengthening Russia's reputation as a leading centre of mathematics have been completely scuppered," the letter said, calling Russia "the military aggressor and, accordingly, a rogue state".
- 'Complete boycott' demand -
The influential Russian Academy of Sciences has "called for a cessation of hostilities and addressed foreign researchers to avoid a breakdown in scientific relations," said Carole Sigman, a researcher at France's National Centre for Scientific Research -- which has also suspended collaboration with Russia.
She said there had been an influx of requests for visas from Russian scientists to come to France -- as well as scientists from Ukraine and Belarus.
Several professors from renowned US universities including Harvard and Cambridge have called on "science and technology communities to avoid shunning all Russian scientists for the actions of the Russian government".
While condemning Russia's "brutal, unprovoked war", the professors said in an open letter published in the Science journal on Thursday that shutting down all interactions with Russian scientists "would be a serious setback to a variety of Western and global interests and values".
But for many Ukrainian scientists plunged into war, the world cutting off research collaboration with Russia is essential.
Maksym Strikha, a physicist from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, told Nature earlier this month that "there should be a complete boycott of the Russian academic community. No cooperation".
F.Pedersen--AMWN