Uprooted Ukrainian scientists may never return from their new research homes

Kyiv, Ukraine— When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Mariupol State University (MSU) on 17 November 2023, he didn’t have to slip behind enemy lines into the devastated city, occupied by Russia since May 2022. He simply had to drive a few minutes to a leafy neighborhood here in Ukraine’s capital, where MSU has found a new home in exile. Zelenskyy had come to pay tribute to the university’s resilience. Since MSU relocated in April 2022, it has re-enrolled 3200 students, about 70% of the prewar number. The new facilities also include a humanitarian hub to distribute food and other essentials to some 25,000 Mariupol refugees in the Kyiv region. “This is a major achievement,” says Mychailo Wynnyckyj, Ukraine’s deputy minister of education and science. MSU is one of 31 state universities uprooted from Russian-occupied territory since 2014, along with two dozen research institutes and scientific centers affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NAS). Tens of thousands of students and academics have been displaced. But not all attempts at relocation have been as successful as MSU’s. With institutions losing access to key infrastructure and many displaced scholars finding havens elsewhere in Ukraine and abroad, a new challenge will loom when the war finally ends: restoring vitality to a fractured academic landscape. MSU’s own survival test began on 24 February 2022, when Russian troops marched on Mariupol, a po...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research