Interfax: Political situation should not affect contacts among Russian, U.S. scientists – Academy of Sciences

Adaptions of Image from Livermore.gov of Element 118 Atoms

(Interfax – July 2, 2014) The president of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Vladimir Fortov, is set to develop the Academy’s cooperation with American scientists regardless of the political situation.

“I will do whatever I can to develop our contacts, despite the winds blowing in one direction or another,” Fortov told a press conference on Wednesday.

The RAS chief called for scientific progress issues to be separated from politics and said that scientists across the world should have the freedom to cooperate with their colleagues from other countries.

“If we throw science and politics into the same pile, we won’t find a solution. So I am against it and convinced that scientists should be allowed to find ways of interacting, including with American scientists,” the RAS president said.

The basis of science is “an element of creativity, a sudden stroke of genius,” he stressed. The rest is aimed at just maintaining the creative part, so scientists should be free from officials, he said.

“At RAS, we stand to the end that scientists must be free from official arbitrariness, ideological and opportunistic things,” said the president of the academy.

 

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