The past week has seen a sudden and serious decoupling of the West from Russia as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Across multiple sectors – political, financial, technical, and commercial – swift actions were taken to terminate partnerships with Russian organizations and cease collaborative projects. Sharp statements of rebuke accompanied the severing of ties, with no suggestion that compromise would be considered. A new Cold War atmosphere took hold in Europe with shocking suddenness, accompanied by a hope that military conflict does not spread any further. Today, we discuss this decoupling in the contexts of research collaboration, scientific exchange and scholarly communication.
Until very recently, the default science policy for many of the world’s democracies has been one of scientific openness and global cooperation. While this has been tested by developments in recent years, openness has continued to be the basic principle, as one of us (Roger) wrote about recently.
Partnerships, shared programs, expert exchanges, and the like are considered “soft power” tools of diplomacy and foreign policy. Soft power approaches seek to influence and persuade through pursuit of mutual interests and opportunities for social, cultural, and political exchange. Soft power approaches are often contrasted with “hard power” approaches, which seek to coerce through force, threats and sanctions.
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