UMass Economist Ina Ganguli Delivers Keynote Talk on How War has Affected Ukrainian Scientists

Ina Ganguli, professor of economics and director of the UMass Computational Social Science Institute, recently presented the keynote address at the sixth Research on Innovation, Science and Entrepreneurship Workshop (RISE) in Munich, Germany. 

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Ganguli’s talk, “Scientists in the Crosshairs: Impacts of War, Crisis, and Conflict on Ukrainian Science,” drew from a paper published last spring chronicling the loss of human capital, the destruction of physical capital and reductions in international scientific cooperation in Ukraine since Russian forces invaded in February 2022. The paper notes that while damage to physical infrastructure caused by the invasion can be remedied relatively easily, it is the loss of human capital that has largely driven the decline in Ukrainian research output and threatens to affect scientific productivity long after the fighting ends. Ganguli and co-author Fabian Waldinger, an economist at the University of Munich, emphasize that post-war reconstruction efforts must focus on supporting scientists and resuming their research.

Ganguli has written widely on the struggles of scientists in Ukraine and continues to collaborate with the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) for ongoing research. The work has been facilitated with the help of a virtual Scholar in Residence program between UMass and KSE.

RISE seeks to bring together doctoral students and junior post-doctoral scholars to present their work, receive feedback from experienced researchers and connect with peers from other research institutions. First organized by junior researchers in 2018, the workshop is held annually by the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition.