Future collaborations of this sort will require individuals who are equally at home in the world of science and the world of diplomacy. The importance of these skills has been brought into sharp focus by the covid-19 crisis, which forged collaborations on unprecedented scales between a wide range of actors, creating new models of cooperation and rapid research and development. The development of highly effective vaccines in record time is a huge success. But there have also been failures of science diplomacy, such as vaccine nationalism and the inequitable distribution of medical equipment and treatments.

While the Covid crisis has highlighted the power of science and diplomacy to achieve collaboration on a global scale, it is likely that growing nationalism and trends towards strategic autonomy will challenge future large-scale science collaborations. This threatens to limit knowledge sharing, the free movement of people and ideas, and funding for international collaboration.