The Russian invasion destroys not only human lives, houses, streets, parks, stadiums, but also science - scientists die, scientific institutes and laboratories, communications, opportunities to work, research, plans, ideas are destroyed. There are no funds for research even where there are laboratories and libraries. But for some reason, when discussing the risks of war for Ukrainian science, they increasingly imply the departure of all promising Ukrainian scientists abroad forever. Because supposedly developed countries have created many programs for them. In fact, this risk is not the worst. There are others that destroy science no less. But first things first.

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The risk of the best Ukrainian scientists going abroad.

It's not scary for several reasons..

First, men aged 18–60 cannot travel, with very few exceptions.. Even if it will be possible to leave later, scientists will not leave en masse if at least elementary conditions for work are created at home.. Secondly, the majority of those who left (mostly women with children and people over 60 years old) will not look for scientific grants because they do not know foreign languages, they do not have very competitive scientific specialties (to be honest:. Scientists - women with children who left, fleeing the war, hardly chose their places of residence, focusing on further scientific employment - with the exception of those who already had relevant connections, and they went directly to universities at the invitation of colleagues.

If scientists leave the country, it will be not so much because of the war, but because science is not needed in Ukraine. This can be seen even in its funding.

Problems with international grants for Ukrainian scientists.

Without a clear “only for Ukrainians” restriction, programs to help scientists at risk due to the war, in fact, oddly enough, will be able to receive predominantly Russians.. Simply because there are dozens, maybe hundreds of times more Russian scientists in Western universities than Ukrainians, and the Russians are actively dragging their own - some kind of imperials and Putinists as " I saw in some American universities aid committees led by very persistent Muscovites, proving the need to help Russians in particular. Ukrainians don't get anything there.

Russians have much broader scientific ties - since the last two decades they have been actively funded by attending conferences (very complicated for Ukrainians). Opportunities for holding powerful international conferences in Ukraine were severely limited after 2010 by the “Tabachnyk rules”, which scientists were never able to abolish, despite great efforts after 2014. Correspondence paid "

The long-term failure in international contacts of Ukrainian science due to miserable funding and restrictive measures is now leading to a real expansion of opportunities specifically for Russians and the growth of their already considerable influence in the international scientific community. I would very much like Ukrainian diplomats to talk about this problem, in particular in the USA, Italy, Germany, Japan. We must also talk about the need for international grants for scientists who remain in Ukraine.

Grant programs for Ukrainian scientists require an invitation from a specific employee of a university or scientific institution, that is, personal connections or recommendations are indispensable. Opportunities to continue their own scientific work with foreign funding are few. There are a lot of applied research programs with a narrow focus - and especially for engineering and biotechnology research.. But the number of scientists in these industries in Ukraine is limited, because there is no equipment and experience..

The negative experience of international relations also highlights the problems and ways to overcome them: firstly, all Ukrainian teachers of all disciplines must know English well (not just have unknown certificates from the university itself or some firms). Without English, there is no access to modern information and modern science - there are hopes only for secondary or distorted information from the Russian swamp. And there is no way to convey your achievements and your value to the world. It is necessary to remove obstacles to holding international conferences in Ukraine and the participation of Ukrainian scientists in conferences abroad, including asking for financial support from the government for this. In addition, it is necessary to develop existing centers of science and their cooperation with universities - common teaching programs, attracting students to research.

And now many students come to scientific institutions for practice in order to conduct research for writing term papers and theses. But the current informal ties need to be made more permanent and beneficial for scientific and educational institutions.. The ideas of destroying scientific institutions will also hurt many universities, which do not have sufficient facilities and equipment for practice and research..

Termination of funding for scientific institutions and fundamental science.

They say that all science should feed itself, and if it cannot, then why is it needed?. In fact, start-ups and inventions are a completely different type of activity that can develop on the basis of scientific discoveries, but this is not a scientific activity itself..

Plans are already being written for the complete liquidation of academies as scientific institutions, the implementation of the failed Russian reform of 2013 with pseudo-efficient managers of new agencies who have no idea what science is, but confidently undertake to lead it (I think the ignoramuses - the authors of plans for the destruction of science - see such managers.

It seems that someone really wants to liquidate scientific institutions, radically reduce the number of university teachers and the universities themselves, in order to later use the expected funds of international assistance to restore science and education for some of their own projects.

\; 2) properly attach the property of scientific institutions and universities; 3) to correctly attach the funds that international organizations will undoubtedly allocate for the revival of science.

Such an approach is guaranteed to lead to all the problems in science that are now scaring society - and to corruption, and to inefficiency, and to brain drain, up to the destruction of the environment for innovation with high-tech startups.. Because the scientific environment is not built from programs to help start-ups or new technoclusters that emerge on the site of destroyed scientific institutions and expelled scientists wherever their eyes look..

Imitators will easily adapt to anything, call soap bubbles startups, come up with an applied character for empty talk or pseudoscience (effective managers themselves do not understand anything and will not turn to experts for advice, so they will easily believe charismatic dreamers).

As for the reduction in the number of teachers - here the biggest risk is for mathematics, natural specialties, because these are the specialties that are likely to receive the least number of students. Capable mathematicians and specialists in the natural sciences have more chances abroad than humanities students, and many applicants in the current conditions will choose “something simpler”, in particular because the quality of humanities education seems to be higher in distance mode than on. Therefore, there is the prospect of a greater reduction of precisely “non-humanitarian” teachers.

In fact, it is necessary not to cut positions and fire people, but to create additional temporary scientific positions or reduce the teaching load for such teachers in order to retain them..

What to do with it?

Convey to the government that Ukraine needs science (different branches - linguists, literary critics, historians with philosophers, and fundamental physicists with chemists, biologists, ecologists, geographers and mathematicians).

It is important to support the development of fundamental science at the state level. We have many scientists who can write a very applied research plan, but applied science needs fundamental. If fundamental science is destroyed now, there will be no applied science either.. There will be no own weapons. There will be no people who can understand foreign. There will be no people who can write our history, not rewrite the enemy's. The destruction of science and scientists always frees up space for charlatans who can easily promise a miracle to poorly educated managers.. In real science there is no real division into fundamental and applied. And real science is needed for a worthy future of any country..

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