Like so many, I am shocked and saddened at seeing war break out in Europe. My thoughts – and those of the ResearchGate team – are with the people of Ukraine and everyone affected.
ResearchGate is an international company, whose purpose is to enable scientists across the world to work together openly and collaboratively, regardless of borders or nationality. We have people from over 40 countries on our staff of around 200, and being based in Berlin, we are profoundly aware of the human cost of conflicts, the echoes of which have shaped and scarred our home city. We join with the international community in condemning the actions of the Russian state.
We have been asking ourselves: What can we do?
From today, we will offer free advertising space worth $2.5 million on our network to humanitarian organizations working to respond to the crisis. ResearchGate benefits from over 50 million visitors every month, and we hope this initiative can help raise funds and awareness for those organizations that are having direct impact and need support.
We also want to use our platform to highlight the response from the scientific community. Personally, I have found the messages of support from scientists everywhere to be truly heartfelt, and I would like to highlight some of the community initiatives I’ve seen here:
- Science for Ukraine provides an overview of labs offering a place for researchers and students who are affected to work from, as well as offers of employment, funding, and accommodation: https://scienceforukraine.eu/
- Labs supporting Ukrainian Scientists is an expansive list of labs and PIs offering support at this time. Submissions go here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeRGe5Da_b6GGyC6VT7CLGViGs06SzeuX7wRKpC4K5tnvlhgg/viewform Find the full list here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HqTKukfJGpmowQnSh4CoFn3T6HXcNS1T1pK-Xx9CknQ/edit#gid=320641758
- This open letter from European scientists expressing solidarity and promoting peace is open for signatures: https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/an-open-letter-from-european-scientists-against
Additionally, I’m posting here some of the organizations responding to the crisis and actively soliciting donations:
- Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF): https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/countries/ukraine
- The UN Refugee Agency: https://donate.unhcr.org/int/en/ukraine-emergency
- UNICEF: https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/conflict-ukraine-pose-immediate-threat-children
To help gather more support for these initiatives, please consider sharing this post further (you don’t need a ResearchGate account to see it), and I will continue to update it with other initiatives as I find them. You can also click “Recommend” below to help others in your ResearchGate network see it. And if you know of any other community initiatives that we can share here please let us know via this form: https://forms.gle/e37EHouWXFLyhYE8A
-Ijad Madisch, CEO & Co-Founder of ResearchGate
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Update 03/07:
This list outlines country-level initiatives from various academic institutions and research organizations, with a focus on programs and sponsorship for Ukrainian researchers:
- https://www.labsarena.com/support-ua/