Who took the helm of Ukraine's national academy of sciences?
A look back at the vote that gave the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine a new president.
Who would lead Ukraine's main scientific body? On 7 October 2020, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine answered that question by electing a new president: Anatolii Zahorodnii, a professor and the director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics.
The choice put a physicist from one of the academy's own institutes at the head of the organisation. Zahorodnii came to the post directly from running the Institute for Theoretical Physics, so the academy chose someone from within its research community.
The vote was a domestic institutional matter, but it took place against a busy international backdrop. A few days earlier, on 2 October 2020, the European Council had agreed on sanctions against Belarus. Cyprus had held out against them, and its opposition was lifted when the Council also agreed on a warning to Turkey.
For the academy, the day's significance lay in the change of leadership, with a professor of theoretical physics now at the top of the national scientific institution.
