CERN knows what – Newspaper Kommersant No. 33 (7478) of 27.02.2023

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has decided how to use the work of scientists from Russia and Belarus. Recall that last year foreign scientific journals could not publish more than a hundred articles about research at CERN, since a number of scientists opposed the designation of Russian colleagues as co-authors. Now the European organization has decided to indicate Russian and Belarusian scientists, but without affiliation with the institutions of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. The Russian Ministry of Education and Science sees this as CERN’s desire to “avoid the politicization of international scientific cooperation.”

Four major scientific collaborations of scientists (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb) of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have decided what to do with the publications of scientists from Russia and Belarus. This was told to Kommersant by several Russian scientists – participants in these experiments; later their words were confirmed by CERN itself.

Recall that earlier The Guardian reported that at CERN, some scientists oppose the designation of Russian researchers as co-authors of their scientific papers. HSE Professor Fyodor Ratnikov (working on the LHCb experiment at CERN) clarified in an interview with Kommersant that the main problem was the affiliation of Russian scientists with universities and scientific organizations, whose leadership publicly supported President Putin’s decision to send troops to Ukraine. Many Western scientists found this unacceptable and did not want such scientific organizations to be associated in any way with their publications.

“When an article is ready in the collaboration, it sends it to the journal and to arXiv, a site where preprints of scientific articles are posted,” says Mr. Ratnikov. So last year, collaborations sent them to arXiv, where they were placed without attribution, and to the magazine. They were reviewed there, but the publication was held until the authorship problem was resolved. According to the scientist, as a result, new articles with the participation of Russians, written after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, were not published in journals all last year. However, the texts that were written and accepted by the magazines before February 24, 2022 were still published.

Publications in journals are important because they are reviewed, reviewed, they pass the quality filter, explains Fedor Ratnikov: “The quality of articles from collaborations is always high, and there is no doubt about it, therefore, in terms of scientific significance, publication in arXiv is no worse. But publications in journals are essential where there are formal requirements. For example, to report to the fund on the use of money. Articles are the measure of a scientific result.”

Director of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (about 50 of its employees are involved in experiments at the LHC) Grigory Trubnikov assures that the lack of publications was not a significant problem in reporting for Russian funds and agencies. He recalls that last year the requirements for publications in foreign publications were softened or completely canceled by the government of the Russian Federation. Thus, the pause with articles affected only young scientists who need publications to defend their Ph.D. dissertations. As a result, the defense had to be postponed, Mr. Trubnikov admits: “Maybe the person planned to defend himself and move to a higher position, or move to work in another center. Therefore, the seven months spent, of course, affected specific human destinies.

Discussions on how exactly to list authors from Russia and Belarus have been going on abroad for almost the entire past year. “Some of the collaborations said that you need to indicate the affiliation. Part – that if you do not indicate affiliations, then everyone, – says Grigory Trubnikov. – This, in my opinion, would be the most fair decision. So, for example, they did it in the Japanese organization KEK. They decided not to indicate the affiliation for all scientists, but to leave just their surnames.”

CERN decided that all publications will contain a complete list of authors and their ORCID (international identifier, a unique code for a scientist). However, for authors associated with Russian or Belarusian institutes, instead of belonging to an organization, it will say: “Affiliated with an institute (or international laboratory) covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN.” Thus, the names of Russian and Belarusian research institutes and funding organizations will not be published in the author’s list, CERN told Kommersant. All other institutions represented by researchers from other countries will be listed. A complete list of authors, including all institute affiliations, will be provided to the journal in a closed format for analysis and historical recording.

Now the collaborations are still working on some technical aspects, but will soon begin to apply this solution and publish again in journals, CERN says. The new rule covers more than 100 articles that have been accepted by journals but not yet published; the same number of scientific texts were sent for consideration, but the editors of the journals have not yet issued a verdict on them. CERN adds that the collaboration decision applies to all articles that will be written before the end of 2024. Last June, we recall, the CERN Council decided not to extend cooperation with Russia and Belarus after 2024.

“We accept this decision as a given,” says Grigory Trubnikov. “We cannot agree or disagree, because this is the opinion of the majority. We continue to work, and our task is to prove to the world that science can bring nations together. In my opinion, Russia should also remain at CERN, and the flag cannot be removed. Because Russia has been involved there since the 1960s. And the contribution of money, resources and human intelligence, which has been made over almost 60 years, is wrong and unfair to cross out.

Fedor Ratnikov is positive about the fact that articles will begin to appear. “And I’m glad that no extreme options passed,” he emphasizes. “There were discussions to remove Russian scientists from the list altogether and prevent them from publishing experiments.” However, he says, if all scientists published without indicating affiliations, then the situation would be less discriminatory: “Anyway, Russian and Belarusian scientists stand out from the rest.”

Daria Strekalina, a leading expert at the Mega Science Center for International Cooperation and Partnership at NUST MISIS, a member of the LHCb collaboration at CERN, says that Russian scientists continue to work at the LHC: “There are no conjectures inside the collaborations with our colleagues. We work on projects together. The human factor has remained the same.”

“Analyzing the situation in dynamics, we see the desire of colleagues to avoid the politicization of international scientific cooperation,” the Russian Ministry of Education and Science told Kommersant. “For our part, we will, as before, adhere to similar approaches.”

Anna Vasilyeva