Challenges for chemistry in Ukraine after the war: Ukrainian science requires rebuilding and support

Abstract

The unprovoked Russian invasion has created considerable challenges for Ukrainian science. In this article, we discuss actions needed to support and rebuild Ukrainian science and educational systems. The proposed actions take into account past Ukrainian scientific achievements including developments in organic chemistry.

Ukrainian Science at Risk

On February 24, 2022, Russia started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, threatening to occupy the country and destroy everything that Ukrainians had created during Ukraine’s 30 y of independence and before. Seven months later, while Ukraine is still in the fight, suffering numerous casualties and great destruction, future steps for the postwar recovery of Ukraine are already being discussed. Along with the recovery of its infrastructure and economy, Ukrainian science will also need support and investments. This will in turn benefit many international projects that heavily rely on Ukrainian products.

After the USSR collapsed, Ukrainian science faced a difficult situation. Chronic lack of financing and permanent loss of expertise led to a significant shortage of Ukrainian scientists, decreased research activity, and reduced quality of research. Many successful Ukrainian scientists who moved abroad became convinced that it was almost impossible to carry out modern high-quality research in Ukraine. Nevertheless, Ukrainian science has not died out, and Ukrainian researchers have had a very significant impact in many areas (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.

Maiolica rooster (https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/news-61059744), a decorative piece that went viral after surviving in a ruined house during the Borodianka occupation by Russians (March 2022), is shown in a chemistry lab as a symbol of Ukrainian science fortitude. Image credits: Andriy Yakymenko, Dr. Oleksandr Hryshchuk.

Organic Chemistry Research in Ukraine before 2022: The Case of Enamine Ltd

One of the exceptions to the general picture of Ukrainian scientific stagnation is the field of organic chemistry, in which Ukraine is a high-quality player. Enamine Ltd., a Ukrainian chemical supplier and contract research organization that became the heart of Ukrainian organic chemistry, has played a particularly important role in this field.

Enamine was founded in 1991 by scientists who initially focused on producing screening compounds for agrochemical and drug discovery research and then became the world's largest provider of chemical building blocks and advanced reagents (1). Over the years, the company has accumulated the world’s largest commercial compound collection, building blocks that represent more than 50% of the world’s stock offer, and created a unique product—the REAL Space, a tractable chemical space of billions of compounds with over 80% synthetic accessibility (2).

All these achievements became possible because Enamine has always been a science-driven company. To compete in the growing markets of fine organic compounds and chemical outsourcing, it is necessary to be both creative and inventive. This challenge encourages the company to systematically invest in research (both internally and in collaboration with academic partners) and chemical education. Such activities start at the school level and include a) special grants for Ukrainian chemistry teachers all over the country, b) sponsoring the Ukrainian Chemistry Olympiads and supporting the Ukrainian team at the International Chemistry Olympiad, c) support for pupils and students who are interested in chemistry by organizing workshops and training sessions, d) help in setting up chemical practicums, and e) funding Ukrainian chemistry textbook publication, among many other activities (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.

Support of chemical research and education by Enamine.

The company engages in both scientific and educational collaboration with major Ukrainian universities. Many of Enamine’s employees and scientific advisors divide their time between the company and academic institutions, and vice versa. Enamine’s scientific collaboration activities with Ukrainian universities, institutes, and research centers range from scientific consulting to providing access to company instruments and establishing joint research projects. At the educational level, many students specializing in organic chemistry and other areas are engaged in collaborative projects and obtain secondments allowing them to conduct research for their bachelor’s and master’s theses using Enamine’s laboratories and facilities.

Enamine scientists regularly publish their research results in high-ranking journals, including Nature (3–7), Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (8–11), Chem. Sci., J. Am. Chem. Soc., and Chem. Rev. (12, 13) (Fig. 3). Recently, Eur. J. Org. Chem. published a special issue celebrating the company’s 30th anniversary (1). With an institutional h-index of 42 (according to Scopus), Enamine holds a strong rank in the field of chemistry.

Fig. 3.

Scientific publications by Enamine scientists according to Scopus (as of 15-07-2022).

The systematic education and research effort made it possible to raise new generations of Ukrainian researchers with initiative and creativity (many of whom continue to work at Enamine) based on robust basic knowledge and diverse chemistry experience. At Enamine, chemists work in a competitive environment and understand the trends and requirements of modern organic and medicinal chemistry. Along with commercial work performance, they are encouraged to conduct research to synthesize novel molecules with chemotypes attractive to medicinal chemistry.

The successful research activity at Enamine demonstrates that under certain circumstances and management, Ukrainian companies/organizations/institutions can be relied upon to perform high-quality research and deliver excellent products on a competitive time scale.

Rebuilding Chemical Science and Industry in Ukraine

After the Russian invasion, all Enamine facilities in Kyїv, facilities of other Ukraine-based chemical vendors (Life Chemicals, Otava Chemicals, etc.) as well as universities and academic institutions (especially located in the east of the country, such as V. N. Karazin National University of Kharkiv or State Scientific Institution “Institute for Single Crystals” of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, among many other), all the potential of Ukrainian chemists, and all the knowledge and experience became threatened with destruction (14). Fortunately, the academic and industrial research and production sites in Kyїv remained intact. After 6 wk of intensive combat operations in the vicinity of Kyїv, the Russian troops were pushed back, and Enamine, other chemical vendors, and academic institutions partially resumed their operations.

At the same time, the war continues on the east of Ukraine, creating enormous difficulties for business, research, and education. The chemistry (and more generally the scientific) community in Ukraine must address long-term challenges to retain its high standards of research and technology and develop new ideas under the current circumstances (15, 16):

• •How to restart the educational and research process by increasing the number of experienced scientists?
• •How to avoid further loss of expertise, due to the departure of students and experienced researchers?
• •How to ensure continuation of communication and work within international collaboration under martial law conditions when crossing the Ukrainian border is restricted?
• •How to resume supply chains to ensure delivery of equipment, reagents, solvents, and consumables necessary for business and research?

Several initiatives have already been proposed to overcome or alleviate these problems (17), and in general, they indicate a systematic effort and versatile support for Ukrainian science. International support at different levels plays a very important role in this struggle by Ukrainian scientists. For instance, Ukrainian researchers who emigrated were able to find jobs in different institutions due to various initiatives such as Science For Ukraine (18), Scholars at Risk (19), or the ALLEA initiative (20)—to name a few. Many universities, governmental and nonprofit organizations participate in these or related initiatives (21–25). During the first 19 d of the full-scale invasion, around 6,300 Ukrainian scientists fled abroad (21), and now the number is certainly much higher. Their return to Ukraine remains uncertain as many emigrated researchers started working abroad both in academia and industry. Among them are many intelligent young scientists and students. If the war lasts longer, many of them will probably remain abroad and build their careers there.

Although hosting Ukrainian scientists that have left the country remains an important way to support them (and should possibly be done at least until the war is over), such a massive loss of expertise can really threaten the future of Ukrainian science. Therefore, it is important to start thinking about and developing strategies to entice those scientists back to Ukraine once the situation is normalized, as well as to avoid further emigration of the researchers who stayed in Ukraine. It is obvious that the country itself will not be able to implement such programs on its own, and the cooperation of the whole scientific community is needed. Perhaps a special international science rebuilding fund for Ukraine should be established to achieve all the outstanding goals (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4.

International science rebuild fund for Ukraine.

First of all, investments in research infrastructure are extremely important. A significant number of university buildings, especially in Kharkiv and Mykolaiv, were damaged. The fate of some facilities on occupied territory (including the cities of Mariupol, Rubizhne, and Severodonetsk) is unknown, but likely many of them also suffered extensive damage during the fighting. However, in addition to repair/rebuilding of the destroyed facilities, many other institutions require renovation and equipment to be able to conduct further research. In the field of chemistry, Enamine helped set up and equip the laboratories in schools, universities, and research institutes in Kyїv and other cities for many years, but investments in the research infrastructure should be on a larger scale and more systematic. A good example of successful transformations that involved a major boost of the research infrastructure is the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, a longstanding partner of Enamine (26). The investments at this Institute came from the European Structural and Investment Funds and the Recovery and Resilience Facility, to which Ukraine has no access, as it is not an EU member. Some opportunities do exist to obtain resources for infrastructure development (for example, some U.S. National Institutes for Health (NIH) funding opportunities encourage applications from organizations in foreign countries such as Ukraine), but researchers have little access to these opportunities because of the lack of proper research infrastructure, creating a dead-end situation.

Another important task for which an efficient strategy should be implemented is the deeper integration of Ukrainian scientists into the international scientific community. According to the scientific collaboration map (27), Ukrainian researchers have relatively sparse interactions with other scientists worldwide. To improve the situation, special programs should be provided for research projects in which Ukrainian institutions are deeply involved. At Enamine, scientists understand the importance of such integration: chemists at the company collaborate tightly with EU and U.S. scholars. Enamine participates in numerous international projects such as Horizon 2020, the European Research Council (ERC), and NIH grants (28, 29). In some projects, the company is the coordinator, and one such project was selected as a “success story” by the ERC directorate in 2019 (30). This demonstrates the high potential of the Ukrainian institutions in international scientific collaboration, which is still underexploited.

Other activities include the organization of various meetings, lectures, roundtables, conferences, and symposiums with the participation of Ukrainian scientists. In chemistry, some initiatives are already underway (such as the Kharkiv Chemical Seminar (31)); however, a much higher level of interactions would be important to ensure better networking and awareness of the current scientific agenda. Notably, such initiatives can be started even now, since they do not require significant funding and can be done on a voluntary basis.

In conclusion, Enamine is just one example of an important Ukrainian research and business institution, whose development became threatened due to Russian aggression, but whose scientists continue to withstand the war despite enormous difficulties. Many other scientific research groups in Ukrainian universities and institutions successfully work and make a significant contribution to modern science (32). Prioritizing those research areas where Ukrainian scientists already have had remarkable achievements might facilitate the country’s fast and efficient renewal. Although this article is centered on Ukrainian chemistry, we believe the above suggestions can be applied to other areas. Ukraine is definitely not a “failed state for science,” and systematic international support for Ukrainian education and science is essential to make significant progress in rebuilding Ukraine that may have a long-lasting positive effect on the entire world.

Data, Materials, and Software Availability

All study data are included in the article and/or SI Appendix.