- From the start InsSciDE nurtured critical thinking about science diplomacy. We never eluded that beyond or within cooperation, science diplomacy conveys and solidifies power relations. Science diplomacy is a conceptual tool to investigate past and present practices, but also a tool to shape these practices today; the literature on the topic itself has been for a long time practitioner-driven, and our case studies on Zenodo.org give even deeper insight.
- We designed spaces and formats to interact and create a dynamic with practitioners and academics, so that InsSciDE is more than the sum of its parts.
- We investigated major themes – Identities of Science Diplomats; Role of Academies of Science and Technology; Heritage; Health; Security; Environment; Space, using some common research hypotheses and 5 guiding questions:
1/ Power with science diplomacy: how are cooperation and competition entwined? How does cooperation exclude, how are its boundaries defined? What were / are the implicit hierarchical assumptions behind science diplomacy discourses? How can more political inclusivity be achieved – and where is this effort most visibly warranted?
2/ When, why, and how does science diplomacy emerge and evolve both in practice and as a concept in the European context?
(InsSciDE confirmed the key moment of the Cold War in technoscientific diplomacy; but it also explored the foundational 19th C., when both scientists and diplomats professionalized. We investigated relations with the Americas and USSR, post-colonial Middle East, Africa and the Arctic, and saw how Indigenous knowledge can provide alternative science diplomacy.
3/ Who were the champions of science diplomacy, the scientists or the diplomats; who were and are the science diplomats?
(We followed front-stage actors like career diplomats, science counselors and attachés, but also backstage actors, like members of expert communities in multilateral settings; we diversified the sites from where to tell their stories: treaty formation and institutional cooperations, and through objects like a training reactor or data systems. Our historical sources included archives and interviews, but also present-day events, documents and social media posts.
4/ How and why was science diplomacy involved in the European constructions that were conceived as ways for a diversity of states and nations to coexist in peace? How does science diplomacy deal with the European divisions?
5/ How to understand science as cultural and social practice, where imaginaries play a role? We identified a 4th dimension of science diplomacy : when the actual practice of science implies negotiation and compromise.
With all this, we collectively made a significant contribution to the field.
Mays C, Laborie L, Griset P (eds) (2022) Inventing a shared science diplomacy for Europe: Interdisciplinary case studies to think with history. Zenodo. 10.5281/zenodo.6590097
https://zenodo.org/communities/insscide(opens in new window)
