MOSCOW, September 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russian scientists are complaining about publications and grants refusals from abroad, Izvestia newspaper reported, citing five scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences and journal editors in the field of physics and petrochemistry.
"The general situation is like this: an article should be sent to sponsoring editors, and the decision will be taken basing on their review. Now, however, major publishing houses do not send articles to the sponsoring editors, and we receive refusals. By the way, it was the same in 2008, during the war in South Ossetia. In the explanation they write that they get numerous articles and the selection process is rigorous. But I had more than a hundred of publications in the period 2009-13, and I never received such a letter. In the past three months, however, I have already got six or seven refusal letters," Izvestia cited Pavel Troshin, expert officer at the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"Pretty often it took much time to review an article, we received vague refusal letters, and at the same time similar materials of foreign authors were published," Maria Aksentieva, executive secretary of Successes of Physics journal, noted.
Vadim Tarasov, head of department at the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, complained that his colleagues did not obtain grants because of the conflict in Ukraine.
Izvestia reported that scientists from the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences are the most severely affected.
However, the Russian Education and Science Ministry denies that the West uses such "sanctions" against Russian scientists and claims that the number of refusals has increased because Russian researchers are writing more.
