Science diplomacy. A forecast

Mention science diplomacy to a geoscientist or a social scientist focusing on Earthly matters, and you’ll likely bring to mind the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC (consider, e.g., the reader’s comment with respect to the recent LOTRW post revisiting this topic[1].)

And justly so. Since 1988 this United Nations body has produced “regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation.” The multiple efforts have involved thousands of scientists, diplomats, and national leaders as authors and reviewers. They’ve galvanized world action on climate change – and garnered the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along the way.

But we are likely on the threshold of far larger diplomatic and global efforts stemming from science advance. Consider just a single example: the United Nations’ Global Digital Compact. Here’s some background, taken verbatim from that website:

Following the political declaration adopted at the occasion of the United Nations’ 75th anniversary in September 2020, the Secretary-General in September 2021 released his report Our Common AgendaPDF. The Common Agenda proposes a Global Digital Compact to be agreed at the Summit of the Future in September 2024 through a technology track involving all stakeholders: governments, the United Nations system, the private sector (including tech companies), civil society, grass-roots organizations, academia, and individuals, including youth.

The Global Digital Compact is expected to “outline shared principles for an open, free and secure digital future for all”. The Common Agenda report suggests issues that it might cover, including digital connectivity, avoiding Internet fragmentation, providing people with options as to how their data is used, application of human rights online, and promoting a trustworthy Internet by introducing accountability criteria for discrimination and misleading content. Find out more here.

(That final link is to a PDF file that offers a bit more detail. Tellingly, it makes a direct comparison to the UN work on climate change, referring to the two issues as seismic shifts that will shape the 21^st century.) The Wikipedia article on the Global Digital Compact provides additional context, including a list of key aspects:

1. Connectivity: Ensuring that all people, including schools, have access to the internet and digital tools for connectivity and socio-economic prosperity.
2. Internet Fragmentation: Preventing the division and fragmentation of the internet to maintain a unified global digital space.
3. Data Protection: Providing individuals with options for how their data is used and ensuring their privacy is respected.
4. Human Rights Online: Applying human rights principles in the digital sphere, including freedom of expression, privacy, and protection from discrimination and misleading content.
5. Artificial Intelligence Regulation: Promoting the ethical development and use of artificial intelligence in alignment with shared global values.
6. Digital Commons: Recognizing digital technologies as a global public good and encouraging their development and use for the benefit of all.

Whew! Giving the attention needed to any individual topic, considered on its own, constitutes a heavy lift. In aggregate, the work is truly daunting. And note that the Compact is limited entirely to the peaceful use of digital science and technology. Diplomatic activity with respect to digital threats is conducted under the label of cyber security. UN activity here is the province of a separate Office of Counter-Terrorism.

Bottom line? It doesn’t take much imagination to see that the task of sorting out all the ramifications of digital science and technology for diplomacy requires urgent attention from large numbers of scientists and technologists of every stripe, from every country, from governments, private sector, and civil society.

This is a two-edged sword. For scientists who love the discipline of their science but wish the work offered more and deeper interpersonal contact and relationships on a daily business, a host of fulfilling, meaningful careers beckon. Science diplomacy is an opportunity.

But for scientists and engineers of the more traditional, discipline-focused, academic sort, the need for international attention to and regulation of digital science and technology imposes an additional overhead. Researchers already spend too much of their time on academic red tape, constant proposal writing, the special problems of foreign students, and more. For researchers, science diplomacy is a burden.  

And climate change and digital science don’t by any means exhaust the need for science diplomacy. It overlays every global endeavor and aspiration: food-, water-, and energy resources; public health; global commerce; etc.

Science diplomacy, much like science itself, appears to be an endless frontier.

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[1] You can find some of the LOTRW posts on this topic from previous years here.