Center for Science Diplomacy

About the Center

International scientific cooperation advances both science and the broader relationships among partner countries. Such cooperation serves an important role in initiating relationships, building trust and expanding understanding between countries and societies. Past examples of science diplomacy efforts include high-profile and productive engagements between U.S. and Soviet scientists throughout the 1970’s and 80’s as well as science engagement with the People’s Republic of China before official diplomatic ties were fully established.

Today, science and technology agreements form the backbone of many efforts to incorporate science into the broader diplomatic relationships between and among countries.

While governments have an important role in facilitating science diplomacy, civil society—including scientists— participation is essential in this diplomacy of deeds. In order to promote and support the role of science and scientists as bridge builders and to raise the profile in both the foreign policy and scientific communities AAAS has established this Center for Science Diplomacy.

The Center is to be guided by the over-arching goal of using science and scientific cooperation to promote international understanding and prosperity. It approaches this goal by providing a forum for scientists, policy analysts and policymakers through which they can share information and explore collaborative opportunities. We are particularly interested in identifying opportunities for science diplomacy to serve as a catalyst between societies where official relations might be limited, and to strengthen civil society interactions through partnerships in science and technology.

Focus

The Center’s initial activities focus on:

• Analyzing current and past domestic and international science diplomacy efforts and deriving lessons learned from those that have succeeded;
• Characterizing the major barriers to successful science diplomacy, such as educational and human resource issues, funding problems, or other policy issues; and
• Leveraging existing and building new partnerships with appropriate stakeholders in both the scientific and the international affairs communities to develop new initiatives and projects and expand ongoing successful ones.