"Peace is a dangerous cause to fight for in Turkey right now. In the latest blow to academics, 11 members of the Turkish Medical Association, including its president, Raşit Tükel, were arrested in early-morning raids last week. Their crime? Using the slogan that war is a matter of public health, the association had called for a halt to the Turkish army’s cross-border assault on military units of Syrian Kurds, launched on 20 January to international consternation. (...) The raids follow the arrest of more than a thousand academics who signed a petition in January 2016 calling for peace in the country’s southeast, where government forces were fighting Kurdish separatists. Many face criminal charges, and hundreds lost their jobs."

"As one part of the government oversees mass arrests and orchestrates war, other parts are quietly but determinedly working to fix some of the entrenched problems in the research system. Thousands of new PhD places have been created in recent years, along with some brand-new research institutes, and universities have been energized into competing with each other by offering financial rewards for strong performers. It is a start, and has been enough to persuade at least some young scientists doing postdocs abroad to return home to establish independent research labs."