Research in Ukraine: Where has it gone?: Recent Episodes
Mike
A weekly 20-minute podcast with researchers in Ukraine, with researchers outside Ukraine who have been collaborating with Ukrainian institutions and researchers, and with subject matter experts who are familiar with Ukrainian research and have thoughts on the most vulnerable areas. Apart from specifics about the research and researchers in danger, ideas will be discussed and presented on how the research community around the world can help in tangible ways, whether it is how to get data out of the country, protect research in progress or wind it down to minimize danger, or ‘move’ the research somewhere safer.
A bit of a departure on this episode of Research in Ukraine. The conflict has taken a turn for both sides, and on the Ukrainian side it is increasingly difficult to track down in-country guests for this podcast.
As more bombs fall on Ukrainian cities we know from research and experience that there will be physical and psychological consequences long after the fighting has stopped so in this, our final episode, we decided to look at how a relatively new area of research can help people cope with what war has done to their lives.
Telepresence.
It is a technology that induces a “sensation of being elsewhere”. As a therapeutic tool, the art and science of telepresence represents a confluence of the social and natural sciences, performative arts, and the humanities. Responsive telepresence’s secret sauce is empathy, the necessary angel that recognizes you cannot change minds without first changing the heart. In the middle of a war, telepresence can interrupt the war playing out in people’s minds. It might even help find peace somewhere in our digital world.
Research in Ukraine has been hosted by Don Hill and produced by Mike Spear. Music by Don Hill and Freesound.
Links to material mentioned in this podcast:
- SCENIC (en francais) by Rene Barsalo, an artist with the Society for Arts and Technology based in Montreal.
- SCORED IN SILENCE by Chisato Minamimura. This solo performance investigates the dropping of atom bombs on Japan in 1945 through narration, films, and found footage of Japanese deaf people who survived the explosions.
- VibraFusion Lab helped the Anandam Dance Theatre explore how to make tap dance more accessible to deaf audiences via vibrating devices.
- SPECIAL PLACES (Writing-On-Stone) as described by Leroy Little Bear.
- STORY TREES (interactive)
- BRIGHT HOPE — a short silent film by Gina Payzant.
- INDIGETEK is a mixed reality installation. Don Hill will take you through what went into creating The Cave.
How is your day going? Did you have a coffee and check your Twitter feed before work or before you walked the dog? If you are a researcher, you might be spending time in the lab or preparing a new grant application. No matter what is on your list, most likely you can expect a fairly predictable day ahead.
That is not the case in Ukraine right now.
Not only is your future uncertain, but even the rest of your day comes with a question mark. Whether you have an internet connection to stay in touch with family, friends, and work or whether everyone is safe or if you even have a place to work are in doubt every single day.
The war in Ukraine is unique in our digital age. We can watch the conflict unfold in real time. We can see the Tweets. There are videos readily available from ordinary people. Disinformation and media manipulation are everywhere – inside and outside the war zone. Politicians arrive unannounced for serious talks and photo opportunities and we can follow their itinerary.
In this podcast episode we feature two academics who don't know when they will be able to count on a predicable or 'normal' day.
Alina Mozolevsaka is a professor at Petro Mohyla Black Sea State University in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. She is now safe with her children in Berlin, but she does not know what the future holds for her personally or professionally. She along with many other displaced scholars, is doing what she can to support people who have remained behind in Ukraine.
Sergii Pakhomenko is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations of Mariupol State University. He had to leave Mariupol and is now in Lviv. He is a political scientist who witnessed the complete destruction of his university and his city.
This episode would not have been possible without the early support of Genome Canada.
Produced by Mike Spear and by freelance broadcaster Don Hill.
Music from freesound.org
We are looking for sponsors to help us keep this podcast alive and to do what we can to raise awareness of the challenges facing the Ukrainian research community and academic institutions. Send a note to radioranch@watervalleyonline.com and we will talk about how you can contribute.
In this episode of our podcast we’ll take you inside Ukraine where scientists are talking about the loss of science capacity as one of the inevitable casualties of war. It is probably a testament to their commitment to research that they are already talking about rebuilding in a post-war environment and how to prevent a ‘brain drain”.
The life sciences have all but come to a halt in the country though there are some areas that have been spared some of the worst fighting and have enough infrastructure left to carry on in a limited capacity. Not surprisingly in a time of war however, most of the funding available to science is gone. Apart from hearing our guests talk about the situation facing science in Ukraine, they also offer their thoughts on how Canadians can help.
Guests on this podcast episode:
- Oleksiy Kolezhuk, a physics professor at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
- Volodymr Vakhitov, an Assistant Professor at Kyiv School of Economics.
- Semen Yesylevskyy , a researcher at the Institute of Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
- Sergei Sharapov, from the Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
This episode would not have been possible without the support of Genome Canada.
Produced by Mike Spear, Director of Communications for Genome Alberta, and by freelance broadcaster Don Hill.
Music from freesound.org
We are looking for sponsors to help us keep this podcasts alive and to do what we can to raise awareness of the challenges facing the Ukrainian research community and academic institutions. Send a note to mspear@genomealberta.ca and we will talk about how you can contribute.
Do we need a new world wide web for the new geopolitical landscape? A “Cold War 2” as one of our guests called it. A war where countries are shooting digital bullets.
The war in Ukraine is proving to be a real-time lab study of staying one step ahead of the hackers and finding ways to protect and preserve research data. It has highlighted the need for the global academic community to establish a secure scientific communication channel with all the necessary encryption to ensure the integrity of research.
And we have seen the need to collect, collate, and protect information that may be needed to prove wartime atrocities.
Guests on this podcast:
- Natalia Otrishchenko, from the Center for Urban History, in Lviv in Ukraine.
- David Shipley, co-founder of Beauceron Security in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
- N. Asokan, a professor of computer science & director of the Cybersecurity & Privacy Institute at the University of Waterloo.
(Though we certainly cannot prove anything malicious, as soon as we started discussing and prepping this podcast series a few weeks ago, our original platform crashed for several days. More likely a coincidence – but the timing did get us thinking!)
Music from freesound.org
We are looking for sponsors to help us keep this podcasts alive and to do what we can to raise awareness of the challenges facing the Ukrainian research community and academic institutions. Send a note to mspear@genomealberta.ca and we will talk about how you can contribute.
Wars are about people. Not just the soldiers and politicians. They are about the ordinary person working to keep the water running and the lights on. Or librarians from around the world racing to back up the digital archives of a country at war.
And there are webinars. Yes, the familiar Zoom tools we have been putting to use in the pandemic are allowing scholars to share their personal experiences since the war started. A chance talk about the challenges of taking care of families and even to discuss how to conduct research under extremely difficult conditions. A time for sociologists to share ideas on how to study civil society, media , and cultural preservation while waiting for the sound of air raid sirens.
The Danyliw Research Seminar Series started in 2005, and now the Danyliw Ukrainian Scholars in Times of Warseries is keeping the spirit alive with help from the international community.
Guests on this podcast:
- Dominique Arel is a professor and Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa. He is one of the organizers of the Danyliw Online Seminar Series: Ukrainian Scholars in Times of War.
- Dr. Natalia Otrishchenko is a sociologist and researcher at the Center for Urban History located in Lviv, Ukraine. She has shifted her attention from leading the Urban Media Archive's "Urban Stories" project to working on an oral history of the war. Natalia was out of the country when the war started and had to find a way to get back into Ukraine and to "6 Bohomoltsia" which has been there since 1904. Along with 200 plus other Ukrainians, she is now sheltering in the Center which is where she was when we spoke with her.
This episode would not have been possible without the support of Genome Canada.
Produced by Mike Spear, Director of Communications for Genome Alberta, and by freelance broadcaster Don Hill.
Welcome to the first episode of Research in Ukraine: Where has it gone?
Guests for Episode 1:
- Rod O’Connor is a Canadian working as a Professor at École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne in France.
- Ellen Goddard is a Professor in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Alberta.
- Nadir Erbilgin is chair of the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta.
- And virtually through email and text you'll meet Sergii Romanenko formerly with the University of Western Australia. Now back home in Ukraine, he is a research scientist at The Bogomoletz Institute of Physiology which has been effectively destroyed. He is now working as a paramedic.
- After this episode was posted we received this email from Sergii.
If you want to see some of the work going on to support researchers either in Ukraine or who have left, try these sites:
- Government of Canada launches fund to support research trainees from Ukraine.
-
ScienceForUkraine is a community group of volunteer students and research scientists from academic institutions in Europe and around the world.
- Project Pause - Solidarity with Ukraine.
This episode would not have been possible without the support of Genome Canada.
Produced by Mike Spear, Director of Communications for Genome Alberta, and by freelance broadcaster Don Hill.