Since 2000, dozens of international scientists have visited Russia’s remote Northeast Science Station at the Kolyma River in Siberia every year to study climate change. This year, however, is different.
Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry has frozen funding to pay staff at the research facility and to maintain instruments that measure how fast climate change is thawing Arctic sub-zero permafrost. It also stopped the release of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas. According to Peter Hergersberg, spokesperson for the Max Planck Society which is funded by Germany, the funding freeze will likely result in an interruption to continuous measurements at the station that date back to 2013. This will compromise scientists’ understanding of the warming trend.
Hergersberg stated that “(Russian) colleagues at Northeast Science Station try keep the station operating,” He declined to reveal the amount of funding withheld. Reuters spoke to more than twenty scientists about the impact on Russian science of the conflict in Ukraine. Many expressed concern about the future of Russian science after Western funding of Russian science was suspended by Europe’s sanctions on Moscow.
Scientists claim that hundreds of partnerships between Russian-West institutions have been halted, if not cancelled entirely, because the invasion has broken down years of international cooperation built after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Many communication channels are shut down and research trips have been delayed indefinitely.
The suspension of Western assistance will affect the construction of high-tech research facilities such as the ion collider or the neutron reactor in Russia. Europe had pledged 25million euros ($27.4million) for these projects. Scientists stated that such technology would allow for a new generation of research, which could help with everything from fundamental Physics to the development and use of new fuels and pharmaceuticals.
After the European Union suspended all cooperation with Russian entities, a further 15 million-euro ($16.7million), contribution has been frozen for low-carbon materials and battery technologies. Dmitry Shchepashchenko (Russian environmental scientist) said that he understood the suspension. He is a Russian environmental scientist who studies global forest coverage and has been associated with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, since 2007.
He said that science is a lose-lose proposition for all. Global issues like biodiversity and climate change… cannot be solved without Russian scientists’ expertise. FROZENFINANCES
Russian science spending plummeted after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thousands of scientists fled their fields or moved to other countries. Vladimir Romanovksy (permafrost researcher), said that scientists felt that their work was not valued. He moved his work to Fairbanks Alaska in the 1990s. “There was virtually no funding, especially for fieldwork.”
While Russian funding has improved over the years, it still remains below that of Western countries. In 2019, Russia spent 1% of its GDP on research and development — or about $39 billion, adjusted for currency and price variation — according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The majority of this money was spent in the physical sciences, such as nuclear energy and space technology.
Comparatively, Germany, Japan, and the United States spend approximately 3% of their respective GDPs. The United States spent $612 million in 2019, which is $612 billion. However, partnerships with scientists around the world gave Russian science an extra boost. For example, Russia and the United States led the international consortium that launched International Space Station 1998.
Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, announced this month that it would suspend its participation at the station until sanctions against Ukraine are lifted. Russian scientists also assisted in the construction of Large Hadron Collider, which is the world’s strongest particle accelerator at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN. The collider made the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, which was previously only theoretically possible.
After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, scientific camaraderie with Europe continued unabated. CERN’s governing board announced last month that it would suspend any further collaboration with Russia. Germany has contributed 110 million euros ($122million) to more than 300 German-Russian joint projects in the last three years. Russian organizations received 12.6 million euros ($14,000,000) more EU funding for 18 additional projects. These projects range from Arctic climate monitoring and infectious animal diseases.
Russian state funding has been awarded to Pavel Troshin for his participation in a Russian-German effort that developed next-generation solar cells that will power communication satellites. The German side is now suspended so the project remains in the air. Joint projects are supposed to be for the benefit of the whole world, and cutting out Russian scientists is really counter-productive,” Troshin, who works at Russia’s Institute for Problems of Chemical Physics, said.
“I never expected something like that. It’s quite shocking to me. It makes me very upset.” ARCTIC BLUEOUT
Projects to study climate change within the Russian Arctic are among the most urgent research projects currently on hold. Ted Schuur, an ecologist at Northern Arizona University, said that Russia has two-thirds permafrost and therefore data from Russia is essential.
“If your view of Russia’s permafrost change is distorted, it will really reduce our understanding of global permafrost. That’s alarming for scientists as global warming thaws the long-frozen ground that holds an estimated 1.5 trillion metric tons of organic carbon – twice the amount already in the atmosphere today.
As permafrost freezes, organic material contained within the ice melts and releases more of the planet-warming gases methane or carbon dioxide. Scientists are concerned that such emissions could cause climate changes to spiral out-of-control. Schuur stated that satellites can be used to monitor changes in landscapes due to thaw but cannot pick up what’s below ground. This requires on-site research.
Russian scientists have shared permafrost data for years. But Western researchers aren’t certain if those communication channels will continue to be open. Due to the limited funding available, these datasets were also not complete. U.S. Woodwell Climate Research Center Arctic Ecologist Sue Natali stated that her project’s plans to boost Russian monitoring capabilities are on hold.
She said that “Instrumentation that was supposed be out this year has been stopped”, as her colleagues’ travel plans were canceled. Contrary to European standards, the U.S. government has not issued any clear directive regarding interfacing with Russian institutions.
A spokesperson for the State Department stated to Reuters that “we don’t hold the peoples of Russia responsible.” [for the conflict], and believe that continued direct engagement with the Russian people is essential – including in science and technology fields.” SCIENCE AS COLLATERAL HARMLESS
Projects funded by the Russian Science Foundation’s budget of 22.9 billion rubles ($213million), had relied on partnerships in India, China and Japan. A spokesperson for the foundation did not respond to Reuters’ questions about the impact of the halt in European cooperation on its work. She stated that the foundation would “continue support leading research teams and their projects.”
European scientists had helped build Russian research sites such as the neutron reactor or the ion collider in St. Petersburg, Martin Sandhop, a coordinator for the EU-funded CremlinPlus project, said. These facilities would be a catalyst for research in areas like materials science, biochemistry, and high-energy Physics.
Plans for a 25-million euro project extension have been suspended. Sandhop’s team is redirecting equipment and experts toward European institutions. For example, Cremlin’s nuclear detectors, which are required for the planned reactor, are now being transferred to a facility in Lund (Sweden).
Even if Russia completes the expansion, it is not clear how valuable the work will become without the suites of tools at Western institutions to analyze the data. Efim Khazanov, a physicist from the Institute of Applied Physics in Nizhny Novgorod near Moscow, said that not having access to European equipment would hinder his work using a high energy laser to study topics such spacetime in a vacuum. This could allow him to expand our understanding of what the universe is.
Khazanov was one of thousands of Russian scientists who signed an anonymous letter posted on Troitskiy Variant. It stated that Russia had “doomed itself” to international isolation after its invasion of Ukraine. Many Russian scientists also fled the country https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Facademia.interfax.ru%2Fru%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F8241%2F&data=04%7C01%7CKaty.Daigle%40thomsonreuters.com%7C3496e75332214187562d08da166a1deb%7C62ccb8646a1a4b5d8e1c397dec1a8258%7C0%7C0%7C637846942271472634%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=%2FPsx1Vt6cZZmma1wkypEgajrN3PTax5p%2FZtecupKyo8%3D&reserved=0, said Alexander Sergeev, head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, according to Interfax state news agency.
The protest letter https://t-invariant.org/2022/02/we-are-against-war was temporarily removed from the site after Russia passed a law March 4 criminalizing “fake news” on the Ukraine campaign. That day, a letter was published on the state Russian Rectors’ Union website in support https://www.rsr-online.ru/news/2022-god/obrashchenie-rossiyskogo-soyuza-rektorov1 of Russia’s invasion and signed by more than 300 leading scientists, who have since been suspended from European University Association membership.
Although foreign funding is only a small portion of Russia’s scientific expenditure, scientists in Russia rely on it to fund their projects and careers. “Those joint research grants were helping many Russians,” said Dmitry Streletskiy (Russian geographer), at George Washington University in Washington D.C. “I’m surprised that the EU is targeting scientists which is not the right target.”
(This story is not edited by Devdiscourse staff.
