A Russian drone has hit the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv today, killing at least one person.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko says three others were wounded in the attack.
The SMC asked the heads of NZ science organisations to comment. Feel free to use these comments in your reporting or follow up with the contact details provided.
Dame Jane Harding, President of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, comments:
“National academies represent a nation’s valued scientists and researchers and their work to establish the truth, advance knowledge, and share its benefits for the good of all. The strike on the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine is an attack on these universal values and principles. We extend our sympathy to the families, friends, and colleagues of those killed and injured.”
Conflict of interest statement: No conflict of interest.
Dr Lucy Stewart, Co-President, New Zealand Association of Scientists, comments:
“It is tragic and distressing to see what appears to be a targeted military attack on a civilian scientific institution, even if it is not surprising given Russia’s other actions in this war to date. Science and research are an essential part of all societies and deserve the same respect and protection as other civil institutions. Undoubtedly, as in other conflicts, there will be scientific knowledge and infrastructure lost here that will take much longer to rebuild than to destroy.”
Conflict of interest statement: “None.”
Professor Troy Baisden, Co-President, New Zealand Association of Scientists, comments:
“Many will find the attack on Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences particularly disturbing, because science and knowledge are often seen in democracies as being independent foundations of our society and not partisan actors.
This view of science as safely independent was purposefully shaped by Vanevaar Bush, who managed US military science programmes during World War II (WWII), and responded to President Roosevelt’s request for a post-war strategy with the case for science as an independent enterprise. The expansive strategy Bush led, the Endless Frontier, is often credited with building the great advances of 20th-century science by enabling independent, curiousity-driven science to flourish separately from applications.
The case for independence formed after WWII has increasingly been questioned across this century, and we continue to see a rapidly changing social contract between science and society. Targeting of a National Academy of Sciences is difficult to separate from the AI race, drones and the militarisation of space, which are moving ahead at pace to make science and technology seem less than independent of governments and their conflicts and priorities.
Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, we face similar challenges in the absence of war, as we watch our own government’s plans to reduce the independence of science from ministers and focus more strongly the government’s priorities, while ending the highly successful Marsden Fund support science that remained independent of immediate applicatoins. The recent boarding by Greenpeace of ESNZ’s research vessel Tangaroa also signals that geologic exploration is no longer independent of its purpose – exploration for minerals, and previously exploration for petroleum resources.
There’s no easy answer, but we should be concerned about all attacks on the role of knowledge, science and research in ensuring that people in any nation can live safe, healthy and prosperous lives, and govern pathways to the future within informed democracies. Science can’t inform society to make better decisions if it has been destroyed, had to run for cover, or been left unsupported.
Conflict of interest statement: “No conflict of interest.”