Science is also suffering from the war in Ukraine. Botanist Dirk Albach explains how his colleagues in Kiev are dealing with the restrictions.
Mr Albach, you work closely with researchers in Ukraine. What do you learn about how your colleagues are doing there?
Many of my cooperation partners live in Kiev, including Sergei Mosyakin, the Director of the Institute of Botany at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kiev, with whom we have had a very fruitful collaboration since 2016. The people there are of course suffering from the constant attacks. I am worried every time I hear on the news that Kiev has been attacked again. I keep receiving photos of the strikes and the damage there. These are usually just details, sometimes a cloud of smoke that someone has taken from the window of their flat or debris on a street. I recently spoke to Sergei on the phone. He says that a certain fatalism is spreading there. People would only listen to all the air alarms for a moment and then just carry on working. Those who have small children still go to the air raid shelters. But many young families have already left Kiev. You notice that there are fewer children in the cityscape.
Is academic work still possible at all?
Yes, and that's what keeps my colleagues there going: They don't want to mothball and somehow survive, they want to carry on. They want to hold on to a normal life in order to cope with all the worries and hardships of the war. Of course, they have to struggle with the fact that the power goes out for an average of five hours a day. But even then they make do. Although they can't work on the computer during this time, they do something else, perhaps formulate something by hand which they then type in later, or work on the plant. Ukrainian researchers are very proud that scientific work continues and that their scientific output has practically not decreased during the war.
The situation for science in Ukraine is not easy overall: several universities have been destroyed, there is no longer as much money for research projects and some researchers have left science altogether.
Of course, the scientists there have to reorganise themselves. There are high inflation rates and a decreasing budget at the same time. And indeed, some have left academia, especially those who fled Ukraine and then failed to find a connection to academic institutions in Germany, for example. But some researchers have also returned and are now working in academia again. In addition, the institutions in Ukraine that are further west have received an influx of scientists from the embattled regions, from Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson. For example, a conference of the Ukrainian Botanical Society was recently held in Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine. It was organised by the University of Kherson, which now has a branch there. The conference could not take place in Kherson because the city is still under heavy shelling.
What kind of research can still take place under these circumstances?
Our colleagues are not doing anything elaborate or expensive in terms of research, but are coming to terms with the restrictions. Some of them are considerable: the research stations of the Academy of Sciences, where my colleagues were still carrying out their research in 2018, are now in the middle of the combat zone. A short time ago, we were still collecting plants together with our Ukrainian partners in the area where the fighting is now taking place. We often think about the fact that everything there is now devastated. And because of the mines, botanical research will no longer be able to take place in these areas for years to come. Of course, this severely restricts the work of Ukrainian researchers in particular: they can no longer visit their field stations or continue research series that they have been working on for years.
In the summer, the BMBF decided to provide millions in support for science in Ukraine. Have you noticed that this support from the West is having an impact on science, for example through better international networking?
The solidarity of German and European researchers is definitely there. There are many offers of support. There are often ways to exchange required material, for example, or to carry out analyses here in Germany that are no longer possible in Ukraine. There is also a desire to cooperate with colleagues in Ukraine. What is often missing, however, is the personal exchange. Many Ukrainian researchers can no longer take part in conferences. Male scientists under the age of 60 are not given permission to leave the country, and many others hardly dare to travel.
What opportunities do you have to support your Ukrainian partners?
For example, we have reallocated funds as part of our joint project, which has been funded by the Volkswagen Foundation since 2016. Fortunately, the Volkswagen Foundation is quite accommodating. In Ukraine, on the other hand, it is sometimes not so easy to use these funds for research. A lot of equipment, such as new computers, is not available at all or only via detours. There are very strict bureaucratic rules, and in order to keep science going, these sometimes have to be circumvented somehow.
Ukrainian researchers see documenting the environmental damage caused by the war as a very important part of their science.
What is the point of continuing to do science during the war?
It is very important to maintain continuity in research, especially in the plant sciences. Because when the war is over at some point, you need the data. This often involves questions of nature conservation and ecological series. Ecological monitoring is still being carried out in the restricted area around the destroyed Chernobyl nuclear power plant, for example. Russian troops occupied the area for five weeks in spring 2022. The damage caused was documented after their withdrawal. Such long-term ecological series are crucial for nature conservation, but also for a fundamental ecological understanding.
What other questions are Ukrainian botanists currently working on?
One major work that has now been published is the Red List of Plants in Ukraine. Work on this began before the war. The researchers made a conscious decision to continue and to publish this list now in order to make it clear: Yes, nature conservation is still important and we will continue to monitor the damage that has occurred in the liberated areas. For example, in the Kherson area, which was occupied from March to November 2022 and was then recaptured. The catastrophic breach of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro in June 2023 is of course also highly relevant from a scientific perspective. Our colleagues are trying to somehow access the areas that have now dried up again to see what happens to the vegetation.
The war is also a disaster for the environment.
Exactly. And the Ukrainian researchers see it as a very important part of their science to document this damage.
What does the contact with Ukrainian scientists mean to you personally?
I find it extremely important to make it clear to my colleagues that we want Ukraine - a free and peaceful Ukraine - to be part of Europe. And that includes personal contact. That's why I take it very seriously that I recently became an honorary member of the Ukrainian Botanical Society. On the one hand, this honorary membership is a sign of the willingness to cooperate on both sides, including my own. On the other hand, it is based on the Ukrainian Botanical Society's political desire to network more closely with its Central European colleagues. I would like to support this and will definitely intensify contact with my Ukrainian colleagues. I also support all colleagues who want to establish contacts in Ukraine.
Interview: Ute Kehse
