Periodic Reporting for period 3 - InsSciDE (Inventing a Shared Science Diplomacy for Europe)
Période du rapport: 2020-06-01 au 2022-06-30
"Science in diplomacy, diplomacy for science, science for diplomacy" describes the span of practices and potentials in science diplomacy. Science (all disciplines of humanities, health sciences, natural sciences, social sciences and technology) can inform and support foreign diplomacy objectives; diplomacy can facilitate international scientific cooperation; science can help build and improve international relations.
Across the globe, regions and states view science diplomacy as an instrument to secure influence, resolve conflict, foster prosperous stability and ensure peace.
InsSciDE – Inventing a shared Science Diplomacy for Europe - was a Horizon 2020 sponsored project (2017-2022) that involved more than 30 researchers in different disciplinary areas, from history to political science, social studies of science and technology and archeology. We addressed many different methods and topics to illuminate science diplomacy, which you can access for free on our websites:
** Case Studies – short texts for personal and professional learning, teaching, and training: https://zenodo.org/communities/insscide
** Many more resources for planning and implementing teaching and training, and a library of published journal articles:
www.science-diplomacy.eu
** Detailed “old news” about our project, a kaleidoscopic view of science diplomacy research and events:
www.insscide.eu
Across the globe, regions and states view science diplomacy as an instrument to secure influence, resolve conflict, foster prosperous stability and ensure peace.
InsSciDE – Inventing a shared Science Diplomacy for Europe - was a Horizon 2020 sponsored project (2017-2022) that involved more than 30 researchers in different disciplinary areas, from history to political science, social studies of science and technology and archeology. We addressed many different methods and topics to illuminate science diplomacy, which you can access for free on our websites:
** Case Studies – short texts for personal and professional learning, teaching, and training: https://zenodo.org/communities/insscide
** Many more resources for planning and implementing teaching and training, and a library of published journal articles:
www.science-diplomacy.eu
** Detailed “old news” about our project, a kaleidoscopic view of science diplomacy research and events:
www.insscide.eu
- 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
- 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
Providing policy-relevant knowledge, honed in a strong engagement process, InsSciDE created impact in at least the below four areas.
Read our Impact Assessment report to learn about measuring impact beyond traditional statistics: www.insscide.eu/results/impact-and-evaluations/article/impact-assessment-2020
a) Impact sought by the European Commission.
InsSciDE clarified values and policy assumptions, took stock of experience, framed learning with theory, gave historical background and depth to current events and policy, and pinpointed strategic conclusions. InsSciDE brought practitioners directly into shaping and perfecting products: case studies, best practices, recommendations, training modules and more.
b) Competitiveness of European enterprise.
InsSciDE boosted a vanguard start-up: ICONEM, subcontractor to WP4-Heritage, supporting an impactful and original science diplomacy field intervention in the Near East. This is an opportunity for the SME to make its hi-tech specialist skills known at global scale.
InsSciDE offers development perspectives to (not-for-profit) European Academy of Diplomacy. This training academy is well-regarded and implanted in Eastern and Central Europe as well as the Mediterranean. By organizing an Open Conference and 3 specialty training events, EAD gained visibility throughout Europe and among UNESCO Member States in other world regions.
c) Environmental, social and societal issues.
The EU has prioritized climate change mitigation and adaptation. The 2015 COP21 and Paris Agreement demonstrated European leadership in creating a global policy framework. Climate change and biodiversity will remain major issues for Europe in the future. Security raises ethical as well as pragmatic issues of cooperation and exclusion for Member States and partners. InsSciDE offers original and extensive research on science diplomacy facing these global challenges, as well as on health diplomacy (epidemics, migration…) and heritage (identity and conflict in the Near East). InsSciDE supports an actual Heritage field action in a war-torn context where it is vital that science and diplomacy meet. This war archaeology contributes directly to keeping inter-regional cooperation alive.
d) Humanities and social science research.
InsSciDE demonstrates the value of the humanities and social sciences in addressing global challenges that cannot be addressed by physical and life sciences alone – nor by single states. Finding human and institutional means to effect interfaces is a profoundly social process. Identifying the social construction and reception of European science diplomacy is key to understanding its (potential) achievements, power and limits. InsSciDE built new bridges in domains traditionally closed to these disciplines – for instance, in Space.
Read our Impact Assessment report to learn about measuring impact beyond traditional statistics: www.insscide.eu/results/impact-and-evaluations/article/impact-assessment-2020
a) Impact sought by the European Commission.
InsSciDE clarified values and policy assumptions, took stock of experience, framed learning with theory, gave historical background and depth to current events and policy, and pinpointed strategic conclusions. InsSciDE brought practitioners directly into shaping and perfecting products: case studies, best practices, recommendations, training modules and more.
b) Competitiveness of European enterprise.
InsSciDE boosted a vanguard start-up: ICONEM, subcontractor to WP4-Heritage, supporting an impactful and original science diplomacy field intervention in the Near East. This is an opportunity for the SME to make its hi-tech specialist skills known at global scale.
InsSciDE offers development perspectives to (not-for-profit) European Academy of Diplomacy. This training academy is well-regarded and implanted in Eastern and Central Europe as well as the Mediterranean. By organizing an Open Conference and 3 specialty training events, EAD gained visibility throughout Europe and among UNESCO Member States in other world regions.
c) Environmental, social and societal issues.
The EU has prioritized climate change mitigation and adaptation. The 2015 COP21 and Paris Agreement demonstrated European leadership in creating a global policy framework. Climate change and biodiversity will remain major issues for Europe in the future. Security raises ethical as well as pragmatic issues of cooperation and exclusion for Member States and partners. InsSciDE offers original and extensive research on science diplomacy facing these global challenges, as well as on health diplomacy (epidemics, migration…) and heritage (identity and conflict in the Near East). InsSciDE supports an actual Heritage field action in a war-torn context where it is vital that science and diplomacy meet. This war archaeology contributes directly to keeping inter-regional cooperation alive.
d) Humanities and social science research.
InsSciDE demonstrates the value of the humanities and social sciences in addressing global challenges that cannot be addressed by physical and life sciences alone – nor by single states. Finding human and institutional means to effect interfaces is a profoundly social process. Identifying the social construction and reception of European science diplomacy is key to understanding its (potential) achievements, power and limits. InsSciDE built new bridges in domains traditionally closed to these disciplines – for instance, in Space.