Earlier this week, a scientist in Russia posted, on Facebook, part of a letter rejecting a manuscript explaining that “the editors of the Journal of Molecular Structure made a decision to ban the manuscripts submitted from Russian institutions.” That move was confirmed by Richard van Noorden of Nature.
Many, but by no means not all, publications have decided not to accept papers from Russian authors. For ourselves, AHRECS has decided not to accept any work from Russian institutions. Other academic titles have loudly declared they will not impose such a ban. To our minds, this comes down to a balance of respect for researcher colleagues wherever they are based and acknowledging individual academics are unlikely to have had any input into the decision to illegally invade the Ukraine, versus a desire to impose some sort of sanction against a country that is causing so much unwarranted death and destruction.
First of all, let me say, because there is some misunderstanding circulating in some social media regarding the issue you asked me for information, that the editors of the Journal of Molecular Structure did not decide to implement any sort of ban to articles submitted by Russian authors. This would be something I, or my colleagues, could never accept. Our Russian colleagues, as all our colleagues from all around the world, deserve us maximum respect.
However, it was decided by the editors of the journal to not consider manuscripts authored by scientists working at Russian Institutions, in result of the humanitarian implications emerging from the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation. This position is temporary and shall apply until the refugees (whoever they are, Ukrainians, Russians, or of any other nationality) have conditions to return to their homes, their jobs, and join their families.
I shall stress that there are not here any political judgment (the reasons for the invasion are not the cause of our action), and even less there is any of the other judgments referred to in the Elsevier’s practice of “Fair-play”, explicitly, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophy judgments. In particular, I have to emphasize again that the decision we took does not apply to Russian citizens, but to Russian institutions. It does not apply to Russian scientists working in other countries at all, and they do apply to scientists of other nationalities (whatever they are) working for Russian Institutions. This has been recognized by Elsevier, that has approved the decision of the editors of the journal. A brief statement explaining the position of the journal will soon appear in its webpage, to let all this clear.
