Ms. Farhana Saleem
Humanity has come a long way since the regional conflicts that resulted in burning of intellectual resources, libraries and documented historical accounts of the defeated. Ours is the information age and that of ‘Science Diplomacy’, which sets the stage for cooperation in what is now considered the most elite form of epistemic preoccupation of current times – Science and Technology. This form of intellectual cooperation in a way holds more merit than any academic cooperation as it has a potential of cross-cuts themes of academics, big science, R&D, global politics, conflict resolution, international relations and cooperation, with a huge potential to fostering and maintaining peace.
As the nature of war and conflicts have evolved over centuries, so has the nature of diplomacy and international relations. Nation-states have learnt a lot from extended conflicts and wars. Foreign Policy has evolved to include measures of ‘soft power’ to manage international relations through non-coercive means. Science and Technology have flourished in leaps and bounds to offer innovative solutions to a number of national, regional and international issues, so much so that international cooperation is but natural outcome of the evolution of knowledge that resulted in current advancements in S&T. For last couple of decades, Science and Technology are institutionally being studied for their reciprocal relationship with foreign policies and other policy domains. Science Diplomacy is being seen as contributor to Big Science, as well as means for furthering foreign policy objectives, as sensitive as dissolving political tensions.
Science Diplomacy is an emerging field that serves as means to bringing scientific cooperation together with political and regional interests of national to serve foreign policy objectives of nations related, inter alia, to from academic/R&D cooperation, resolution of peace and conflict, or working out ways of addressing common global challenges. Ontologically speaking, the current narratives of science diplomacy with specific jargons and definition are fairly recent, early 2000s. However, academic, research and scientific collaborations have been nibbling on the hard lines of international relations over centuries.
As a more relatable example from the 20th century, Russell and Einstein’s Manifesto of July, 9, 1955, warned the world about impending nuclear war. Signed by nine other leading men, the Manifesto cautioned against the worst that nuclear war could bring to the world, while also calling world leaders to ‘remember their humanity’. Calling the American Congress’ attention to these threats, the Manifesto read:
“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”
This page from the history provides an example of men of letters exhibiting what we know under the popular typology of science diplomacy as ‘Science for Diplomacy’. One wonders, had the field existed in its manifest form as it does today, would the outcomes of the competitive scientific race around World War I have been different?
Science Diplomacy maybe a relatively new field, but it is becoming increasingly important and relevant as we face global challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and sustainable development. It could be an effective public policy instrument for bringing closer groups of actors from ST&I, Education and Foreign Policy with a potential to addressing these challenges that are also cross-border and even cross-continental in nature. The calling of Science Diplomacy is also to help invoke actors (states, international institutions, etc) for stronger international relations to improve situations with regard to political tensions, which is why it is crucial for diplomatic community to playing a role as enablers of international scientific collaborations.
Developing countries who’ve not had the chance to benefit from the industrial revolutions of the 20th century stand to benefit greatly from good utilization of Science Diplomacy in that there is a lot to be gained from the countries with comparative and competitive advantages from the countries faring well in different fields of S&T. Good scientific collaborations, while may not be a direct contributor to peace could serve as a reason to maintaining it, in addition to stronger collaborations in the face of growing global challenges with far-reaching gains.
Rather newer terms like Climate Diplomacy, Vaccine Diplomacy have rightly gained popularity in view of the catastrophic climate events and recent and looming future pandemics about which the humanity has been forewarned. Science Diplomacy offers a unique approach to addressing these challenges by focusing on building bridges through scientific collaboration and exchange for attaining peace, prosperity, and sustainability around the world.
The 2015-Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) played a key role in informing the negotiations that led to the historic Paris Agreement on climate change. The Report provides an excellent example of Science in Diplomacy, where scientific evidence informed foreign and security policy decisions and helped achieve global consensus on the need to address climate change.
Not far behind in adopting this 21st century field, academically speaking, some institutions in Pakistan embarked upon this journey of Science Diplomacy. Around the same time as the IPCC Report and the cusp of MDGs to SDGs shift, the academic and scientific cooperation in this regard has been ongoing in Pakistan since 2015 thanks to some international organizations based in the country, such as the Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS). Science Diplomacy has since been gaining steady pace and popularity in the development sector related to Science and Technology with other organizations, such as ECO-SF and COMSTECH, soon following suit.
Pakistan’s national Science Diplomacy narrative as an element of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy started to develop in true sense in 2019 when Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry announced its Science Diplomacy Division. With objectives related to socio-economic development, fostering S&T collaborations, institutional linkages, and technology transfer, engaging scientific diaspora, and science popularization. A very well-articulated Pakistan’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy document (2022) further reinforces Pakistan’s Science Diplomacy agenda. The Chapter 8 ‘Revitalizing Science Diplomacy’ with its policy statements 52 through 59 touches upon a number of related policy matters and visions including those pertaining to mobility of scientists, necessary engagement of Pakistan’s foreign missions and training of assigned foreign office officials, enhanced engagement of relevant international organizations based in Pakistan, enhanced scientific advice on foreign policy; and relevant cooperation agreements.
Pakistan has a strong legacy of Science Diplomacy that is older than the terminology itself. The country has produced some brilliant scientific minds and institutions in the past resulting in a history of Science Diplomacy. A practical example of this is the institutional building in the developing countries owed to Pakistani Nobel Laureates, Prof. Abdus Salam. Salam was a true cience diplomat who employed his stature as a scientist and an academician, and his knowledge of intricacies of government affairs for promotion of scientific institution building in the South. His efforts in early 1960s, resulted in the establishment of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (AS-ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, an institution Europe proudly considers a part of its long Science Diplomacy tradition . The Centre along has trained over 160,000 scientists from developing countries, and it is a model for science diplomacy in action. Till his death in the 1990’s Salam had been an ardent science diplomat, having set in motion movement for other such institutions, including Pakistan-based COMSATS.
Science needs to prevail when the word is faced with huge global problems like pandemics and other health challenges, climate change, food and water security, and resources management. In this world of global governance and globalization, none of this is possible without the right use of different facets of Science Diplomacy. It will benefit Pakistan greatly to enhance its international reputation and attract foreign investment and partnerships in science and technology. Pakistan’s strong science diplomacy narrative is important for representation in global relevant fora. Diplomats that are trained in Science Diplomacy and scientists with horizons wider than lab work to include knowledge of science administration, international affairs and policy are key to improving gains from Science Diplomacy.
Regional competitiveness between neighboring countries has long been a source of impetus seen mostly in cases of arms and nuclear weapons race motivated by strategic and deterrence reasons resulting in national nuclear programmes. A healthier competition can be had in scientific excellence motivated by groundbreaking work in science and technology. For instance, India’s moonlanding as a landmark event should be a motivator of development of Pakistan’s space programme. We’ve seen the world’s technology frontiers expanding from similar competitiveness between the world tech giant countries in the past. Regardless of who wins the space race, all in the running have a lot to gain in trying to catch up. We ought to start running.
In addition to effective implementation of envisaged policy agenda for science diplomacy, way forward to having and sustaining a sound legacy in this respect would be to: a) learning from those who embarked on this journey before us, some organizations in the West, such as AAAS, US, and TWAS, Italy, not only have a clear intellectual and academic advantage but also offer collaborations in for scholarly exchanges and trainings; b) development of an indigenous science diplomacy agenda that is to say, while a lot needs to be learnt from the trail-blazers, there needs to be an indigenous narrative to Science for Diplomacy, Diplomacy for Science, and Science in Diplomacy and to better align and achieve national and regional goals. The aforementioned policy statements of ST&I policy are a great start; c) maximum participation of erudite minds of the country and diaspora in international fora and their presence at important tables along-side the top government officials for representing the country as a progressive nation employing intellect for mutual gains to be had from S&T cooperation. Furthermore, it is absolutely crucial to rewind, recap and re-align Pakistan’s achievements in science diplomacy over the last few decades. The country, despite its troubles, has been contributing to scientific institution building and has a notable participation in big science initiatives such as those taking place in CERN, Geneva. A repository of the historical achievements and documentation of ongoing and planned efforts would help best show-case Pakistan’s Science Diplomacy strength and serve well the country’s related interests.
Science Diplomacy has the potential to play an important role in development of Pakistan’s softer image. Socio-political turbulence may be frequent and may have persisted long but it can no more be used as an excuse. With a lag of decades in S&T-development that we are faced with further accentuated by landmarks being achieved by nations with similar beginnings, we have no time to lose. Also, the world has seen the best of knowledge, mightiest of science, and research collaborations produced in the most trying of times.
