Guardian: CERN can’t agree on how to credit scientists from Russia

An impasse has arisen at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) due to the fact that some scientists oppose the designation of Russian researchers as co-authors of their scientific papers. It is reported by The Guardian.

According to the publication, usually a lot of scientific articles about experiments at the Large Hadron Collider are published during the year, thousands of scientists and engineers are involved in the projects. However, in March 2022, after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the number of published works on the LHC fell to zero. The reason is that CERN cannot agree on how to indicate the authorship of scientists from Russia and Belarus (this is about 7% of participants) and whether to indicate them at all.

It is reported that CERN came to a temporary compromise – until these works are made public. At the same time, articles continue to be prepared, they are sent for review.

More than 70 studies are currently unpublished, according to the Guardian. Preprints of papers can be found on the arXiv server, but the list of authors and organizations funding research is not indicated there.

“There is indeed a delay. About 70 or more, less – I don’t know. An important point is that the disagreements are not at CERN, but in various scientific collaborations, each of which includes groups from many countries and institutions. As far as I understand, CERN has stated that it will take a decision on the collaborations. At the moment, there have been votes on several options, none of the options has been supported by a majority. So, as far as I know, there is no agreement yet. Unfortunately, I do not remember the details of each of the options, so I can not give you any specifics. I also don’t know what options will be offered in the future, ”Ivan Polyakov, an employee of the LHCb collaboration, told RBC.

According to physicist Fyodor Ratnikov, it has not yet been possible to develop new rules for publication that would suit everyone. He said that for Ukrainian colleagues “this issue is naturally extremely painful,” but most of them “do not shift the responsibility” for what is happening in Ukraine to Russian scientists. “I would say that some of my EU colleagues are much more radical,” Ratnikov said.

So far, the situation has not greatly affected research funding or the award of scientific degrees, the newspaper notes. However, University of Delhi professor Brajesh Chowdhary, a participant in one of the experiments at the LHC, warns that further delays in publications will lead to “many problems” for scientists.