UK universities brace for impact of sanctions against Russia

The UK government wants to ostracize Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine, so researchers at UK universities are bracing themselves for sanctions affecting science partnerships with Russia, including in climate science and space research.

Simon Marginson, a professor of higher education at the University of Oxford, said most academics would support a research boycott with heavy hearts and concerns for their Russian colleagues.

All the Russian academics are against the war. There is a case for maintaining ties because of the situation in Russia.

Germany halted all collaboration with Russia on education and research immediately. Russia had turned its back on the international community by invading Ukraine and was committing a grave violation of international law, according to the ministry of education.

The UK science minister ordered a rapid review of all Russian beneficiaries of UK science and technology funding.

British academics collaborating with Russian scientists, the freezing of any joint funding, and the exclusion of Russian scientists from reading or publishing in international scientific journals are possible sanctions.

Prof Colin Riordan, the vice-chancellor of the University of Wales, said that some academics had withdrawn from events in Russia of their own accord. If the government told his university to cut ties with Russia, it would do so because of the bigger things at stake.

He said the government should be careful about banning collaboration with Russian academics.

Prof Steve West, the president of the vice-chancellors, told the Guardian that they should expect science sanctions. The position of universities is that scientific collaboration and research is a vital global endeavor. The safety and stability of the free world is being challenged by what is happening.

Thousands of academics in Russia have signed open letters opposing the war. Academics from across Europe are pulling out of partnerships.

Almost 4,000 academics, students and graduates of the prestigious Moscow State University have signed a letter condemning the war that our country unleashed in Ukraine.

There is no room for excuses in the letter. War is violence, death, loss of loved ones, powerlessness and fear that cannot be justified.

More than 15,000 Russian academics and students signed a condemnatory open letter on Thursday.

A senior Russian scientist, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said that some science leaders had been accused of betraying the motherland by speaking out against the war. Many people were afraid to sign the letters because of fear.

He said that people in the west don't fully understand the pain we feel. Many of us have relatives in Ukraine.

He said that he knew of academics in Russia who had written to their partners in the UK and other countries in private, and that they did not support the invasion of Ukraine.

A Russian scientist who said he had been chased by riot police this week said he was disgusted with the rejection letters and cancellation of invitations.

A Russian climate scientist based at a leading Russell Group university in the UK said his field work, which was based in Russia and involved Russian scientists in different disciplines, looked likely to grind to a halt. He was going to go on a joint expedition with his colleagues in Moscow. This will be a big blow for climate science.

The scientist said that the majority of academics in Russia are not fans of the current regime, and that sanctions will strike right at them.

Paul Nightingale, a professor of strategy at the University of Sussex, said that measures should be adopted that would be brutal and would achieve the aim of turning more people against Putin.

He said that Britain and the US could offer five-year working visas to every Russian with a PhD in order to encourage a brain drain from the country.

Nightingale, a former director of special projects at the UK government's Economic and Social Research Council, said that he was in favor of sanctions against Putin, but they must be imposed carefully to avoid killing the possibility of academic diplomacy.

During the worst of the cold war, American, European and Russian scientists would work together on important problems.

The people we would be hurting most in trying to damage Putin are our friends.

The head of the Institute of Education at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow said that global science was important to Putin. The Russian government wanted universities to be more involved in global science by collaborating with researchers abroad and publishing in international journals.

The idea that might be broken is a great shock to scientists.

The director of the Research on Research Institute, Prof James Wilsdon, said the UK government was likely to focus sanctions on areas with strategic security implications for Russia.

He warned that in the long term, ministers must be careful not to choke off the good.