Falling Walls and Berlin Science Week will host the 2020 edition of the World Science Summit, held remotely from 1 – 10 November 2020. The event gathers some of the world’s best researchers which will take the floor in over 200 sessions to discuss the multi-faceted aspects of science in the world today.
One of this aspect is science diplomacy, which will be addressed on November 5th in the session “European Science Diplomacy: Science, politics, society – shaping the future together” (held in German language, please click here to register). More than 20 experts will discuss the need for enhancing European cooperation between science, politics and civil society to address global challenges: The focus is on evidence-based policy making. In this session, three groups will be formed, each discussing a specific challenge, those are “Environment and Sustainability”, “International Crisis Management” and “Open Science”. The discussion will be interactively engaging the public which will be incited to reflect upon strategies for further global collaboration.
During the session’s lunch break, it will be the opportunity for each of the science diplomacy H2020 projects to introduce their work and insights on science diplomacy.
El-SCID (European Leadership in Cultural, Science and Innovation Diplomacy) will be presented by Nicolas Rüffin, Berlin Social Science Center, who will provide information on the heterogeneities in science and cultural diplomacy approaches. Christina Bürgi Dellsperger, UNESCO Paris, will introduce the current activities of InsSciDE (Inventing a shared Science Diplomacy for Europe). The main outcome of the S4D4C project like publications and training activities will be presented by Elke Dall, Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI), S4D4C project coordinator.
The session is organised by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which also grants awards for successful educational and science diplomatcy initiatives. S4D4C team member Stefan Kuhlmann is part of the Jury.
Many other sessions are interesting from a science diplomacy perspective. We recommend checking the “City-led Science Diplomacy. The New Urban Agenda’s Roadmap after COVID-19” session, from the sci-tech diplo hub for an outlook on local science diplomacy. Another example of science diplomacy relevant event is the session “China – The New Science Superpower? National Developments and Global Effects”, hosted by the Max Plank institute, which will discuss China´s new role in the global science system. Both above-mentioned events are held in English.
The full programme is available here.
The summit takes place in a hybrid form and most events are held virtually. The summit is entirely free of charge, to register please click here.
