The European Synchrotron and Free Electron Laser Users Organisation (ESUO) unreservedly condemns the invasion by the Russian Federation of Ukraine, and the war of aggression against that sovereign independent country, its people and its institutions. These tragic events must stop.
Our thoughts are for the safety of the Ukrainian people, and of the Ukrainian scientists in our community and their families, and in addition all of those people affected either directly or indirectly by the ongoing war.
As ESUO our interests and objectives are purely to advocate on behalf of all of the European users of the European advanced research facilities that are synchrotron and free electron laser sources. ESUO are supportive of all of the actions undertaken thus far by the respective synchrotron and free electron laser facilities in freezing any formal cooperation with the Russian Federation and their research institutes.
An expectation has always been that as scientists and as users when performing research we collectively participate in peaceful scientific cooperation for the advancement of society and the expansion of our knowledge base for the good of all.
ESUO exists as a collection of nominated national delegates from national user organisations and facility user organisations drawn from the scientists who use the advanced research facilities of synchrotron and free electron lasers. The current membership of ESUO is drawn from across almost all European nations, EU nations, EU candidate countries, EU associated countries, and the UK. ESUO has not had to this date any representative or national delegates from the Russian Federation or Belarus, nor to this date any representative or national delegate from Ukraine.
ESUO notes that there are many Ukrainian scientists and users of European synchrotron and FEL facilities who have either been displaced by the conflict from their home institutions in Ukraine, or were already based in other countries and engaged in research there. We sincerely hope they and their fellow scientists and family members are well and safe in these troubling times. As a gesture of European solidarity with the Ukrainian scientists in our community we wish to reach out to them to form a Ukrainian Synchrotron Users Organisation and will look forward to welcoming as an observer a Ukrainian delegate into ESUO at the earliest opportunity.
ESUO recognises the Russian scientific colleagues, co-workers, and students within our community who are against the war. We all look forward to when we can see a return to peaceful cooperation and coexistence between countries.
Of many initiatives too numerous to list perhaps a good resource is: https://scienceforukraine.eu/ and https://twitter.com/Sci_for_Ukraine