When Iryna Ilienko escaped from Ukraine with her daughters, she left behind her research and the 20-year career she had built as a cell biologist in Kyiv before the Russian invasion.
Ilienko and his 19-year-old daughters fled to Budapest, Hungary, shortly after the start of the war, and remained there for a month before flying to Edmonton on April 9, not knowing what. the future holds them.
As the war progresses, there is growing concern about the lasting effect the conflict will have on the global scientific community, and about the missed opportunities for discovery in the fields of academia, medicine, and science in Ukraine.
However, there are scientists in Canada who are trying to help war-torn researchers settle in a new country, at least for now.
In Edmonton, the co-founder and CEO of Future Fields, a biotechnology company, had posted online that the lab was interested in hiring Ukrainian researchers who fled because of the conflict.
“The idea of having to stop my career above all else that you would have to face as someone fleeing a war-torn country, that’s horrible,” Matt Anderson-Baron said. “If we could help in this way, it’s obvious.”
Until the conflict, Ilienko had worked at a research center in Kyiv for more than 20 years. He was worried about losing his scientific career because of the war. (Sam Martin / CBC)
And several weeks ago, Anderson-Baron hired Ilienko.
“I [was] I’m afraid my scientific career could be stopped, “he told CBC News.
“It’s like the first step for me,” he said of the new job. “Of course it’s very difficult … For me, it’s very important that I’m here. If I am [had to] I think I spend another month in Canada without working [I] it will be absolutely crushed. “
Displaced academics
Intellectual institutions are often the first targets when a war breaks out, said Karly Kehoe, an associate professor at St. Louis University. Mary’s of Halifax and advocate for displaced and refugee scholars.
“Universities are often seen as areas where there can be intellectual exchange and they have more freedom, academic freedom, to say what they think based on their research,” Kehoe said.
“That doesn’t always go very well.”
A local resident walks near a heavily damaged building during the Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on May 20. (Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters)
Kehoe points out how academics were displaced by World War II, during the war in Syria, and now during the conflict in Ukraine.
“The most common thing is that people have to flee to leave their research behind. [but] they don’t leave their ideas behind, “he said.” They take their children and their families away if they can, they won’t necessarily stop and move their labs. “
We may be missing out on any discoveries they may have made or may have made in their careers.— Karly Kehoe, an associate professor at St. Mary
This can translate into lost potential, especially if someone is unable to continue their work in a new environment.
“We’re potentially missing out on any discoveries they may have been making or potentially making in their careers,” Kehoe said.
Search in motion
Aaron Barr hopes to mitigate these losses by helping to relocate Ukrainian researchers and their work to Canada.
The CEO of Canadian Rockies Hemp Corp. in Bruderheim, Alta., has been connected to the Bast Crops Institute, the Ukrainian National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, for about two years.
Aaron Barr is CEO of Canadian Rockies Hemp Corporation in Bruderheim, Alta. (Sam Martin / CBC)
In addition to relocating staff, Barr said he is working with the institute to transport about 1,800 kilograms of specialized seeds and pedigree that agricultural scientists have developed in recent years.
The seeds are expected to arrive in Canada in late May; if they don’t move out of high school, Barr said, they would probably be damaged. Most of the grain and seed production containers have been destroyed, he said.
“They had some of the seeds in their warehouses and those are the things we can truck away from there to a safe place and then take them here to Canada,” Barr said.
Vladyslav Tkachenko, a spokesman for the institute, said it was unclear how long the war could persist and that the staff did not want to risk losing the investigation they had put into the seeds.
“We do not know what the outcome of the war will be. That is why we are looking further and trying to find the best solution for our case,” he said in an interview with CBC News from Dnipro, Ukraine.
Barr said he has seen resilience on the part of his colleagues in Ukraine.
“The staff left there at the institute is determined to continue rebuilding,” he said. “This year they will sow crops. They are doing everything they can to continue living their lives.”