InsSciDE Work Package 3: Science Diplomats

Summary of the InSciDE project

InsSciDE – Inventing a shared Science Diplomacy for Europe – aims to create new knowledge on past and present science diplomacy in Europe, engage stakeholders in drawing lessons learned, and deliver shared policy and training tools.

Science diplomacy takes place when states call upon science and scientists to help advance foreign relations; when scientists and their institutions become involved in diplomacy to help advance science, technology, and innovation; or when these actors join forces to resolve conflict on a transnational scale. InsSciDE researchers invite practitioners to explore what could – or should – be the science diplomacy of the European Union and to formulate recommendations for the harmonious division of competencies between the member states and their Union.

InsSciDE aims to reveal and foster Europe’s capital of science diplomacy experience. Themes of historical and critical study include Heritage, Health, Security, Environment, and Space. InsSciDE will also write the contemporary history of diplomats’ networks and of roles played by National Academies of Science or Technology. Scientists and diplomats will meet to better understand each other and forge a common culture. Interactive seminars and summer schools provide a dozen opportunities over the course of four years (2018-2021) to network, reflect, and participate in creating a shared science diplomacy for Europe.

Domestic and transnational initiatives have long used science in global diplomatic engagements, in a diversity of ways and contexts. But this practice is fragmented, unrecognized, or lacking an overall model for leveraging and consolidation. InsSciDE will reveal, formalize and communicate this intangible capital, develop its conceptual bases and elaborate tools to help European science diplomacy emerge and blossom. From first questions to final tools and training, we lead this process from inside science diplomacy – hand in hand with its practitioners, potential practitioners, and other stakeholders. Those who deploy, direct and benefit from science diplomacy are co-inventors, end-users, and ambassadors for the project, accompanied by a research consortium associating academic excellence and tested competence in stakeholder engagement. An ambitious communication program presents InsSciDE to an international audience for feedback, widely disseminates the findings and intellectual products, and ensures their legacy.

Summary of the Work Package 3: Science Diplomats

International scientific cooperation, initially between individuals and then increasingly via congresses (Rasmussen, 1990) or joint publications (Shapin, 1995), has been one of the cements of a European knowledge space (Schroeder-Gudehus, 1990). The Academies of Sciences had international influence mainly through interpersonal ties (Fox, 2012), or close exchanges (Schroeder-Gudehus, 1978; Crosland, 1995).

The 18th and especially the 19th century saw a tradition of international exchanges among European engineers (Deicer, 1995). Sweden founded an Academy of Engineers in 1919 (Frängsmyr, 1989) but in other countries Academies of Technology arose closer to the turn of the 20th century from processes that, in the UK or France, took respectively three or two decades (Fischer, 2005; Griset & Greffe, 2015).

At national level, the most outstanding achievements in science diplomacy are found in countries with the highest scientific output (Berg, 2010; Flink & Schreiterer, 2010). Gradually, embassies have professionalized the role of Science, Technology and Innovation Counselors and Attachés (Ruffini, 2017). Very few investigations have explored and analyzed this process (Sunami et al., 2013; Wisard, 2010). Very little is known of the formal and informal networks created among the envoys of each Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and also between the attachés representing their various nations in a single foreign capital.

Academies of Science (Daston, 1998) or of Technology, and embassy Counselors or Attachés are the carriers of Europe’s intangible capital for science diplomacy. InsSciDE will study the evolution of these spaces and networks as a process of construction embracing the creation and development of institutions, but also the slow elaboration – through practice and experience – of savoir-faire and methods (Golinski, 1998).

We will also bring into view the elaboration of a European scientific culture (Gillispie, 1960) articulating both ethical principles and practices of negociation and influence, across polarities such as: disinterested science vs. mercantile technology; science for peace vs. technology for war; science for cooperation vs. technology for competition. This joining of issues generates multiple tensions, linked for instance to the conflict between national interest and universalism (Crawford et al., 1993; Somsen, 2008), which both construct and destabilize science diplomacy and may converge to an opposition between a science perceived as ’pure’ vs. a ’useful’ diplomacy aimed solely at forwarding the specific interests of States and their enterprises.

Goals of the Work Package 3 leadership

As WP3 Leader, Maria Paula Diogo will organise an Open Conference in Lisbon with WP1, a Thematic Workshop, and a Local Network Presentation seminar. She will also conduct a case study and participate in the Project Management Board.