Among the requirements are:
- to completely stop cooperation with the Russian Federation, to deprive Russian institutions of access to electronic collections of magazines, books, databases;
- to terminate cooperation with Russian citizens working in companies and representative offices;
- to stop carrying out educational and other activities intended for scientists from the Russian Federation.
In addition, the Ministry called for the suspension of cooperation with Belarus, depriving Belarusian institutions of access to electronic resources of scientific information.
The letters were sent to more than 30 publishers, companies and scientific organizations: Clarivate, Elsevier, Springer Nature, John Wiley & Sons, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, SAGE Publications, Emerald Publishing, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Royal Society of Chemistry as well as other electronic resources that were available to Russian and Belarusian scientists.
Russian scholars must be the intellectual vanguard of Russian society, show critical thinking in contrast to propaganda narratives against Ukraine and the democratic world. However, the real reaction of the scientific community of the Russian Federation demonstrates the opposite attitude to the war and Russia's invasion of the territory of sovereign Ukraine.
Earlier, a number of publishers and companies have already published statements in support of Ukraine, announced the termination of activities in Russia and measures taken to support Ukrainian scientists. In particular, a joint statement was issued by a number of major publishing houses around the world, which announced an unprecedented step to suspend the sale and marketing of products and services for research organizations from the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus.
The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine hopes that all publishers of scientific literature, international companies and scientific organizations will support calls for a proper response to the aggression against Ukraine.
The letters to major publishers of scientific literature and international companies also emphasize the importance of providing Ukrainian scholars with open access to electronic resources of scientific information (journals, books, patents and other databases) in order to support scientific and innovative activities in this difficult time for Ukraine.
It should be recalled that major publishing houses and companies have already opened access to their resources for Ukrainian scientists within the Research4Life project, Poltava Polytechnic received free access to Coursera and edX.
