We are experiencing times of increased hostility between countries, and a very dangerous separations of countries into competing blocs. We are concerned about the negative effect that the tragic Russian-Ukrainian conflict will have on science and culture. There have been calls for a boycott of Russian scientists. German and Finnish governments have frozen scientific and educational contacts with Russia. This is unacceptable, as would be a hypothetical punishment or isolation of American scientists for the horrors of the US-led invasion of Iraq. 

Similar things happen with culture: great musicians Gergiev and Netrebko were fired in Germany and Italy for their refusal to energetically denounce their government (more recently, Netrebko published a statement distancing herself from Russia, in an attempt to get her job back). This is reminiscent of the times of McCarthyism, when scientists were punished for not fighting communism energetically enough. Add to this the so-called "China Initiative" of American government, which searches for "Chinese spies" among scientists, a witch-hunt which has resulted in broken lives and scientific careers. 

Direct contact between scientists across national borders is crucial to the scientific enterprise; the global pool of scientific knowledge is the accumulated contributions of many scientists around the world. Because of the nature of science, it is important that the international scientific community remains open - and scientific journals and conferences are open to scientists from all countries. We call for the scientific and cultural communities to return to being truly international, open, and apolitical. We call for removal of all boycotts and for unfreezing of all contacts between scientists and people of culture. 

We believe that science and culture, having the power to unite people, can help the world resolve the ongoing crisis. We thus urge leaders of the world to initiate and entertain dialogue to define a peaceful future of the world. The international scientific community can play an important catalytic role here - at difficult times like those that we are currently experiencing, scientists do have open doors, where diplomats have closed theirs. Political dialogues might thus benefit from being entertained on politically neutral grounds. Such neutral scientific venues are available.  

Nils Chr. Stenseth, University of Oslo, Norway

Artem R. Oganov, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia