EASE statement on the invasion of Ukraine

The European Association of Science Editors issues this statement in support of our Ukrainian members and all peoples of Ukraine.

We are absolutely opposed to war in our modern age and are collectively appalled by the invasion and aggression brought upon the nation of Ukraine by the Russian Federation.

The mission of EASE is to improve the global standard and quality of scholarly publishing by promoting the value of science editors and supporting professional development, research, and collaboration. We are proud of our global network of members, and the communities we have built through our Regional Chapter activities in, among other countries around the world, Ukraine and Russian Federation, and we are deeply saddened by current events.

We wish to support all Ukrainian scholarly publishing endeavours through this period as far as we are able. For our Ukrainian Chapter, all Ukrainian members and all Ukrainians involved in scholarly editorial roles, we are offering complimentary membership to EASE and access to all our resources from now until the end of 2023.

We will continue to provide our resources and events for our Ukrainian Chapter as much as can be organised and will make available all materials to be accessed whenever possible. We will also be working with our membership to investigate ways to support Ukrainian editors and minimize disruption to scholarly communications in the region.

Beyond EASE, we support all global publishing initiatives to create a pool of support to facilitate the continuation of academic activity and science communication between Ukraine and the world. We endorse the removal of paywalls to research and encourage waiving of publication fees to enable open-access publishing, such as the Research 4 Life initiative, and all independently arranged offers and initiatives made by academic publishers.1 We also advocate for initiatives such as the academic and social support programmes listed on the #ScienceForUkraine website.

Research and scholarly publishing is a global endeavour and should be able to operate beyond political constraints. Believing this, we have no intention of isolating any members and will retain regular communications and member benefits for all our members in anticipation of a resolution of the current conflict.

We encourage all our members, colleagues, and scholars to advocate for de-escalation of violence in Ukraine, as much as is possible for them to do so. We will closely monitor the situation and provide additional support and activities as necessary, hoping to help Ukrainian editors overcome the difficulties they are facing now.

Duncan Nicholas
EASE President
on behalf of EASE Council

This statement is also published in EASE journal, European Science Editing:
Nicholas D (2022) European Association of Science Editors statement in support of Ukraine. European Science Editing 48: e84992. https://doi.org/10.3897/ese.2022.e84992