Tim Flink

We are witnessing a rising interest in the concept of science diplomacy across the globe. The chapter sheds light on the origins of the term, introduces prevalent definitions, and identifies four driving forces which push the development of science diplomacy. Subsequently, we highlight the similarities and differences of activities in France, Germany, the UK, the USA, and by the European Commission. With no common denominator of science diplomacy, several understandings of the concept exist in parallel within and across countries. Lastly, we focus our attention on prospects and challenges for science diplomacy.

Die Gründung des Europäischen Forschungsrates (ERC) im Jahre 2007 gilt als der politische Big Bang in der Forschungs- und Technologieförderung der Europäischen Union. Der ERC bewerkstelligt zum ersten Mal das, was der Europäischen Kommission mit ihrer Ausrichtung auf ökonomisch nützliche und politisch zweckgebundene Ziele bisher versagt geblieben war: wissenschaftlich selbstbestimmte »Grundlagenforschung« zu fördern. Forschungsthemen werden von Wissenschaftlern definiert, Fördergelder sind nicht politisch proportioniert, das Begutachtungsverfahren (»peer review«) richtet sich ausschließlich nach wissenschaftlichen Gütekriterien. Das vorliegende Buch liefert erstmals umfassende Hintergründe zur Entstehung des Europäischen Forschungsrates und verbindet historische, wissenssoziologische und politikwissenschaftliche Ansätze. Anhand der historischen Strukturen trans- und supranationaler Forschungsförderung erklärt der Autor, wie die EU-Forschungspolitik aufgrund der Legitimationsanforderungen an den gesellschaftlichen Nutzen der Wissenschaft und der Europäischen Union selbst bereits früh auf einen »Marktimperativ « zugerichtet wurde – die Existenzberechtigung einer europäischen Institution zur Förderung von Grundlagenforschung erschien somit unwahrscheinlich. In einer interpretativen Policy-Analyse wird die konkrete Entstehung des ERC im Zeitraum von 1994 bis 2007 rekonstruiert. Die wirtschaftliche und politische Zweckkonditionierung der EU-Forschungspolitik, gegen die die Idee des ERC gerichtet war, stellte paradoxerweise das Nadelöhr dar, durch das alle Forderungen nach einer EU-finanzierten Grundlagenforschung hindurch mussten. Das Brüsseler Tabu wissenschaftlich selbstbestimmter Grundlagenforschungsförderung wird vordergründig performativ durch den US-amerikanischen Begriff »Frontier Research« umgangen. Hinter der Indienstnahme der »aggressiven« Frontier-Semantik steckt jedoch mehr: Mit ihr wird eine Leitunterscheidung von Grundlagen- und anwendungsorientierter Forschung negiert, ein fragwürdig individuelles Wettbewerbsprinzip in der Wissenschaft heroisiert und eine ebenso fragwürdige geostrategische Abgrenzung Europas gegenüber globalen Konkurrenzregionen gefestigt. Die dahinterliegende soziale Problembewältigung europäischen Regierens zeigt der Autor anhand einer wissenssoziologisch-hermeneutischen Analyse der in diesen Prozessen zur Geltung kommenden sozialen Deutungsmuster auf.

Summary For almost twenty years, the concept of science diplomacy has gained momentum in a public discourse that brings together science policy and international affairs. While some policy actions were newly established and others got into the stride of science diplomacy, the public discourse kept proliferating and has greatly enlarged the concept’s meaning. Reviewing one of its most common definitions, this contribution critically reflects on the sensational promises made by advocates and endorsers of science diplomacy. Their framing bears on a popular and romantic image of science that would hold salutary capacities to solve problems no matter how complex and that goes into rhapsodies about scientists as cosmopolitans who would eagerly collaborate with kindred spirits regardless of national and cultural contexts. Apart from the fact that science tends to get instrumentalised for particularistic purposes, these reveries are problematic, as they overbook expectations about science a...

SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) is an international research centre located in Jordan. The centre was established in the late 1990s with the intention to foster scientific cooperation in a region of the world that has been torn by persistent conflicts. The project is built on the idea that science can help to overcome barriers and cultural differences within the common ground of science and research. SESAME's core ambition is to operate an international state-of-the-art synchrotron users' facility in the north of Amman that is accessible to scientists from all of its members: Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Palestine, Turkey and Jordan. Accordingly, SESAME has been often praised as a paramount example of science diplomacy. Our intention for this report was to investigate a concrete international research infrastructure with a specific science diplomacy interest. What were the enabling conditions for such a project to come into being and what keeps SESAME running? What were the challenges and obstacles? How does the composition of member states play into that? How is SESAME related to (and embedded in) the global synchrotron community, academia, researchers and political actors in the region and the world? Did the science diplomacy ambition behind the project turn out to be successful and how does it affect SESAME's future?

Zusammenfassung  Wann immer sich die Wissenschafts- und Forschungspolitik dem Vorwurf ausgesetzt sieht, öffentlich finanzierte Forschung trage nicht ausreichend zum gesellschaftlichen Nutzen bei, bemühen sich Entscheidungsträger um diskursive Strategien. Spin-offs stellen als Nachweis der Nützlichkeit von Forschungspolitik eine solche Strategie dar. Ihre Realisierung gelingt jedoch nur selten, da sich die Referenzsysteme von Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft diametral voneinander unterscheiden, unternehmerische Aktivitäten vom Wissenschaftssystem

Science diplomacy has caught remarkable attention in public policy and academic research over the last fifteen years. However, the concept is plagued by a huge talk–action discrepancy: its public discourse has reached a problematic state of dazzling self-adulation, while it is unclear if and how the actual policies and associated organizations live up to these expectations. The article reconstructs three structural causes to explain the recent hype about science diplomacy. It further encourages actors to organize evaluations that ask whether and how actions of science diplomacy can be valuable. In this regard, a first set of fundamental principles is proposed for setting up an evaluative framework. In conclusion, the article advises science diplomacy actors from democratic states and institutions, from both academic research and public policy, to stop dreaming about soft power influence on authoritarian states and regimes but rather face new geopolitical realities.

Excellence and frontier research have made inroads into European research policymaking and structure political agendas, funding programs and evaluation practices. The two concepts travelled a long way from the United States and have derived from contexts outside of science (and policy). Following their conceptual journey, we ask how excellence and frontier research have percolated into European science and higher education policies and how they have turned into lubricants of competition that buttress an ongoing reform process in Europe.

SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) is an international research center located in Jordan. The center was established in the late 1990s with the intention to foster scientific cooperation in a region of the world that has been torn by persistent conflicts. The project is built on the idea that science can help to overcome barriers and cultural differences within the common ground of science and research. SESAME’s core ambition is to operate an international state-of-the-art synchrotron users’ facility in the north of Amman that is accessible to scientists from all of its member countries: Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Palestine, Turkey, and Jordan. Accordingly, SESAME has been often praised as a paramount example of science diplomacy. Our intention for this report was to investigate a concrete international research infrastructure with a specific science diplomacy interest. What were the enabling conditions for such a project to come into being and what keeps SESAME running? What were the challenges and obstacles? How does the composition of member states play into that? How is SESAME related
to (and embedded in) the global synchrotron community, academia, researchers, and political actors in the region and the world? Did the science diplomacy ambition behind the project turn out to be successful and how does it affect SESAME's future?

The public discourse of science diplomacy has been nurtured for two decades, as actors repeatedly stressed the relevance of the concept by campaigning, showcasing and defining activities as science diplomacy. But while the effectiveness of science diplomacy remains unclear, not least as discourse on it gets hardly discerned from concrete actions, this policy brief aims proposes that diplomacy actions should be concretely evaluated. To do so, this policy brief introduces a first set of guiding ideas that policy actors may consider using when developing an evaluative framework.

In recent years, the concept of science diplomacy has gained remarkable ground in public policy. Calling for closer cooperation between actors from science and foreign policy, it is often being promulgated as a hitherto neglected catalyst for international understanding and global change. On what grounds science diplomacy entertains these high hopes, however, has remained unclear, and—as a blind spot—unaddressed in a discourse mostly shaped by policy practitioners. Recognizing that the discourse on science diplomacy is still unspecific about how its means and ends should fit together and be comprehended, we reconstruct the concept and its discourse as a materialization of actors’ interpretative schemas and shared assumptions about the social world they constantly need to make sense of. Science diplomacy is presented as a panacea against looming threats and grand challenges in a world facing deterioration. The prerequisite for such a solutionistic narrative is a simplified portrait of diplomacy in need of help from science that—romanticized in this discourse—bears but positive properties and exerts rationalizing, collaborative and even pacifying effects on a generic international community in its collective efforts to tackle global challenges. We conclude that these interpretative schemas that idealize and mythify science as overall collaborative, rationalizing and complexity-reducing are problematic. First, because the discourse misconceives ideals and norms for real and will therefore disappoint social expectations, and second, because science is likely to be instrumentalised for political purposes.

For almost twenty years, the concept of science diplomacy has gained momentum in a public discourse that brings together science policy and international affairs. While some policy actions were newly established and others got into the stride of science diplomacy, the public discourse kept proliferating and has greatly enlarged the concept’s meaning. Reviewing one of its most common definitions, this contribution critically reflects on the sensational promises made by advocates and endorsers of science diplomacy. Their framing bears on a popular and romantic image of science that would hold salutary capacities to solve problems no matter how complex and that goes into rhapsodies about scientists as cosmopolitans who would eagerly collaborate with kindred spirits regardless of national and cultural contexts. Apart from the fact that science tends to get instrumentalised for particularistic purposes, these reveries are problematic, as they overbook expectations about science and foreign politics that can hardly be fulfilled.

The European Commission has recently started to revamp its institutional setting and policies, also in order to engage more explicitly in science diplomacy. While this initiative has been appreciated, it comes along with a variety of challenges. This policy brief identifies three particular and interrelated challenges pertaining to science diplomacy in the European Union: (i) defining science diplomacy as a variable, yet encompassing and succinct framework, (ii) the coordination between Member States and the European Union, and (iii) the training of staff engaging in science diplomacy. First, it is key to comprehend that science diplomacy is a variable concept, therefore, a meta-governance framework is applied as it is sensitive to changing configurations of actors, governance arrangements and policy practices in a case-specific way. Second, the Commission and the Member States institutions are advised to revisit and clarify where and how science diplomacy should be applied in a coordinated way given numerous challenges that all actors are facing. Third, there is a need for training skills in science diplomacy, starting with raising awareness within institutions of the manifold dimensions that science diplomacy has at the intersection of S&T and foreign policy. Avoiding academic prescriptions, we follow and synthetize the advice from science diplomacy practitioners in the European Union who shared their experiences and needs with us.

Excellence and frontier research have made inroads into European research policymaking and structure political agendas, funding programs and evaluation practices. The two concepts travelled a long way from the United States and have derived from contexts outside of science (and policy). Following their conceptual journey, we ask how excellence and frontier research have percolated into European science and higher education policies and how they have turned into lubricants of competition that buttress an ongoing reform process in Europe.

Der Beitrag diskutiert zentrale Entwicklungen, Strukturen und Mechanismen der Forschungspolitik der Europäischen Union (EU). Dieses Politikfeld wurde im Hinblick auf seine Themen, Programme und Budgets seit Mitte der 1980er-Jahre massiv erweitert, doch zugleich scheint es seinem eigenen politischen Integrationserfolg zum Opfer zu fallen: Es sind die primär ökonomischen Ziele und die begrenzte Legitimation nationaler und transnationaler Koordinierung, die der EU-Forschungs- und Technologiepolitik (F&T) weitere Integrationsschritte untersagen. So entsteht der Eindruck, dass F&T-Förderung aus Brüssel ausgerechnet allen möglichen, nicht aber wissenschaftlichen Zwecken zu genügen hat.

In the wake of burgeoning international activities and collaborative venues in S&T, rich industrial countries have taken to science diplomacy to strengthen their innovative capacities or to foster cross-border civil relations. Apart from some theoretical considerations and empirical case studies, however, we still know little about its different objectives or the strategies, administrative procedures and resources deployed at this fuzzy intersection of S&T policy and foreign affairs. Presenting findings of a comparative study of six countries' science diplomacy, this article puts forward some simple heuristics to account for different programmatic styles and organizational patterns in this emerging field.

Wann immer sich die Wissenschafts- und Forschungspolitik dem Vorwurf ausgesetzt sieht, öffentlich finanzierte Forschung trage nicht ausreichend zum gesellschaftlichen Nutzen bei, bemühen sich Entscheidungsträger um diskursive Strategien. Spin-offs stellen als Nachweis der Nützlichkeit von Forschungspolitik eine solche Strategie dar. Ihre Realisierung gelingt jedoch nur selten, da sich die Referenzsysteme von Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft diametral voneinander unterscheiden, unternehmerische Aktivitäten vom Wissenschaftssystem nicht honoriert werden und Übergänge zwischen beiden Systemen schwer zu organisieren sind. Whenever science and research policy face the allegation that publically financed research would not be conducive enough to the benefits of society, decision-makers apply themselves to discursive strategies of justification. Spin-offs employed to demonstrate the societal benefits of research illustrate one of those strategies. Implementing spin-offs successfully, however, hardly works out, because the referential systems of science and economics fundamentally dissociate themselves from each other, with entrepreneurial activities being dismissed by the scientific system. Under these premises, transitions between the two systems are hardly feasible.

Profilbildung ist das politische Schlagwort der Hochschulreformen in Deutschland, das sich auf drei Hauptanliegen bezieht: (1) Organisationswerdung,
(2) horizontale und (3) vertikale Differenzierung. Erstens
sollen Universitäten rechenschaftspflichtige und (ver-)handlungsfähige Einheiten verkörpern, zweitens inhaltlich und strukturell Alleinstellungsmerkmale entwickeln und drittens durch einen Wettbewerb untereinander ihre Qualität und Reputation stärken. Durch die Exzellenzinitiative wurde die Debatte um das Profil deutscher Universitäten erneut  angefacht, v. a. aber auch finanziell und programmatisch unterstützt. In dieser Studie zeigen wir allerdings, dass deutsche Universitäten nach wie vor mit der Herausforderung konfrontiert sind, Alleinstellungsmerkmale herauszubilden. Die besonderen Herausforderungen liegen darin, dass
die Mitglieder der Universität nur sehr begrenzt „gesteuert“ werden können, darüber hinaus entstehen Rollenkonflikte der Hochschulleitungen als Promotoren und Organisatoren des institutionellen Wandels.

The term science diplomacy has gained increasing attention both within academia and in the political agenda setting in recent years. In some cases, it has turned into a reference label when discussing the interaction between science and international affairs. S4D4C specifically wants to investigate how this interplay acts out on the European level and how European science diplomacy could be strengthened. Yet, from an analytical point of view, it still remains an open question what exactly the term denotes, how it is defined and conceptualized. Particularly, it seems to be both informed by an academic as well as by a political interests. This could compromise the analytical capacity of science diplomacy as a concept. This state of the art report examines these questions and provides a literature overview on the discussion and findings of the debate of EU science diplomacy. In doing that, we distinguish between science diplomacy as a discourse and existing activities and structures that could be potentially considered as science diplomacy but do not need to be.

we present the results of a baseline analysis of the needs of the professionals working at the interface of science and foreign policy. We combine qualitative and quantitative data from desk research, interviews, participant observation and, most importantly, an open, anonymous online survey. The 130 answers to the survey constitute a novel source of primary data in the science diplomacy research
arena. The results help us better understand the population of science diplomacy practitioners, their goals, practices, challenges and needs as well as their views on the label ‘science diplomacy’. The analysis will inform S4D4C’s work on training and knowledge resources. In allowing for more targeted governance, the results are also relevant for science diplomacy-related policy-making in the EU and beyond.