Convened by the national science academies of Poland, Ukraine and the United States, the meeting attracted leaders from science communities in Germany, Denmark, Britain, as well as the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities.
In an article in Science Magazine published this week, the head of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), Prof. Jerzy Duszyński, and his US and Ukrainian counterparts outlined an action plan aimed at helping Ukrainian science meet its immediate and future needs.
The plan provides for grants for joint research programmes, particularly if conducted inside Ukraine.
It urges international efforts to supply Ukrainian scientific laboratories with various types of instruments and materials, and to offer Ukrainian female scholars, who had been forced to flee their homeland, in many cases with their children, temporary research positions and financial support.
The Polish and US academies of sciences have partnered to place temporarily some 220 Ukrainian researchers in Polish science institutions.
In their article, the three academics--Poland's Duszyński; Marcia McNutt, head of the US National Academy of Sciences; and Anatoly Zagorodny, head of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine--described the scope of destruction in Ukraine.
They said: “In Kharkiv, the renowned Institute of Physics and Technology and its newly built Neutron Source nuclear facility have been heavily damaged. Even the Plant Production Institute with its underground national seed bank, one of the world’s largest, has been bombed. At the Chernobyl nuclear labs, Russian forces have looted or destroyed hundreds of computers, radiation dosimeters, and irreplaceable software and equipment.”
(mk/gs)