MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/. The worldwide novel coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for wider cooperation by countries in science and for a proper balance of competition and interaction, the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Sergeyev, told TASS on Monday.
"As the C0VID-19 pandemic goes on, the need for wider international scientific cooperation has soared. I believe that this will be one of the positive spinoffs of such an unfavorable development as the coronavirus pandemic. There have been quite a few events, including international ones. Everybody makes a response. So do we, whenever we are invited to participate," Sergeyev said.
As an example, he mentioned the agreement signed in July between the Russian Academy of Sciences and the US National Academy of Sciences, which expands cooperation by the two organizations in different coronavirus-related fields. The agreement envisages cooperation in epidemiological, virological, and molecular biological research and in a number of other fields.
"True, countries may compete - who will be faster to produce a vaccine and so on and so forth. Let it be so, because when scientists cooperate and compete at the same time - it is a very natural symbiosis. A proper balance promotes stable cooperation," Sergeyev concluded.