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Associated Emerging Topics:
4.1Science-based Diplomacy
"Science-based Diplomacy” is based on computational social sciences, mathematics, optimisation theory or behavioural research and covers different emerging fields of research, such as computational diplomacy and negotiation engineering.
4.2Advances in Science Diplomacy
The products of science are increasingly celebrated as drivers of global health, sustainable development and wealth creation. Science and technology are also sources of tension and competition between nations or regions. The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the role of science on the international stage, how it rapidly advanced novel vaccine technologies, and how co-operation over these vaccines became a crucial part of the currency of international negotiations, diplomacy and geopolitics. But conflict also plays a role in mediating the influence of science and technology; situations such as the war in Ukraine are revealing how careful states need to be with powerful technologies, the way they are transferred and how they are used.
4.3Foresight, Prediction and Futures Literacy
Nobody can see what the future holds. This has been recognised as an absolute truth since at least the time of Aristotle. Modern civilisation is nonetheless built on attempts to do just that, over time scales ranging from hours (weather forecasting and traffic patterns) to decades (climate change and demographic shifts). These attempts allow us to anticipate what the future holds, and to plan accordingly. The urgency of this anticipation has increased along with perceptions of the increased speed and complexity of change.
4.4Democracy-Affirming Technologies
The Democracy Index, as measured by the Economist Intelligence Unit, has recorded a snapshot of global democracy every year since 2006. Its latest report for 2021 suggests that 45.7 per cent of the world's population live in a democracy, a significant drop from 49.4 per cent the year before.1 This is one, but by no means the only, indication that democracy is in decline.
Related Content:
Opportunity
Digital threats to democracy – misinformation, propaganda, political tribalism – are trending toward a future of destabilised political and community coherence. Many experts anticipated that greater connectivity and access to information would help build a broader foundation for democratic values, but political projections of the future no longer easily align with these expectations. As digital tools are increasingly used in democratic systems, the judiciary, and other governmental processes, the operating foundation for many nations and their citizens has never had more at stake.
Opportunity
A new mindset and professional pathway are needed to establish Anticipatory Science & Diplomacy methodologies among experts and decision-makers. We must start with the way we train our current and future leaders across all sectors: in STEM fields, in national governments, in multilateral institutions, and in the private sector – to empower the current and next generation with a "multilingual" mindset in science and diplomacy and foster boundary spanning professionals and institutions.
Invited Contribution
The evidence is overwhelming that humans are by default co-operative, moral and deeply averse to harming others. Our very co-existence in cities with millions of residents, on a planet with billions of inhabitants, testifies to that. And yet, by some counts, over 200 million civilians have been killed in acts of genocide, war, and other forms of collective conflict over the last century alone.
Opportunity
The grand challenges facing humanity in the 21st century will be both global and technical. Climate change, unemployment, hunger, and a host of other issues will require experts of all kinds around the world to come together to solve them. Yet today, trust in science is on the decline and multilateralism in some regions appears to be in retreat.
Debate
Our monitoring tool detected just over 63,000 “actions” by civil society actors (citizens, small groups and NGOs) in the areas covered by the Science and Diplomacy scientific platform. Compared to the other 3 scientific platforms analysed, we observe a larger share of citizen science contributions and policy-oriented actions. This is explained by the nature of the emerging topics considered, with, for example, the detection of many citizen-led projects in the area of democracy-affirming technologies.
Debate
Analysis of mainstream media articles, blog posts and scientific articles over a period of 12 months reveals that the overall sentiment towards Science and Diplomacy is largely positive.
Invited Contribution
International relations studies the interactions between states from a multidisciplinary perspective. It has led to the development of specific disciplinary fields such as international law, international political economy, international relations and transnational history. All these fields share the premise that the basic unit of international relations is the State, which aggregates and represents national interests at global level. As a rational evolution of interstate relations, multilateralism has been developed to reduce transaction costs when a common international regime is needed to bind a large number of states.
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Machine-learning, data policies, and social media platforms are already adding complexity to the conflict zone, and conventional technologies are being continuously enhanced by digital capabilities and computer systems. In the future, nanotechnologies could upend international policies. Exposed health data could put individuals at risk from precision-engineered pathogens. Governments require a much deeper expertise to respond to unconventional threats. Ultimately, reliance on non-state actors, large global tech companies, and informal citizen groups to engage in direct political actions may be a standard part of conflict and intervention, but we cannot wait until tomorrow to assess the boundaries of this transformation.