How will science diplomacy contribute to the welfare of our globally interconnected civilization across the 21st century and into the future?

Published on November 26th, 2024

We now live in a world that is struggling to evolve, especially with nations repeating the mistakes of the 20th century that led to two world wars, fomented by nationalism with industrial capacities and advanced technologies.  The complication with planetary-scale considerations on Earth – epitomized by climate and 8 billion humans –  is nations will always first and foremost look after their national interests, which is the biggest risk for the survival of humankind.

Despite the gloom-and-doom and difficult international circumstances, we are experiencing today with concerns across the board about trust – science is hope with inclusion and the antidote to overcome fear that drives exclusion in our world.   With 21st-century perspectives of the Anthropocene – we are beginning to understand as well as apply transdisciplinary foundations of science with society for the future.  

Transdisciplinary science involves knowledge systems inclusively, all of which reveal patterns, trends and processes that become the bases for decision-making (albeit with different methodologies).  Natural sciences – including biology, chemistry, geology and physics – involve experiments with controls, testing hypotheses with quantitative results that seek to be objective and reproducible, and involving data from research that can become evidence for decisions in the context of institutions.  Social sciences – including law, history, economics and anthropology –consider values and ethics, and are also fundamental for institutional decisionmaking.  Indigenous knowledge – including cultures, traditions and stories among Peoples in places immemorial – has, despite all obstacles, empowered societal resilience over millennia with ever-changing nature on Earth.  Inclusively, science is the study of change, requiring balance among diverse knowledge systems, especially with the subnational-national-international foundations that support science.

Current questions today about “trust in science” are an outcome of policymaking for momentary political effect, commonly in the name of security, without considering the strategies and synergies that will enable sustainability with inclusion.  Similarly, questions about “making sense of science” are momentary, avoiding the reality that society progressively makes sense of science.  Most importantly, trust in science is compromised when our world is viewed through the short-sighted lens of geopolitics and self-interests, at odds with perspectives across time, which always have been the gift of science with innovation and societal progress. 

Trust in science is also compromised with advocacy, introducing agendas that politicize research processes and interpretations, which commonly are handed to decision-makers as recommendations.  If the science community wants to build trust with society, the opportunity and challenge is to be inclusive at the stage of posing questions (who, what, when, where, why and how) with decisionmakers and scientists, stimulating research-into-action with all vested in science as a global public good. 

With questions of common concern, science empowered the most severe adversaries the world has ever known to build the first nuclear arms agreement.  Following directly from the International Geophysical Year (IGY) 1957-1958 that was renamed from the third International Polar Year (IPY) – “with the interests of science and the progress of all mankind” – the United States and Soviet Union signed the 1959 Antarctic Treaty along with ten other nations, including claimants and non-claimants, based on “matters of common interest”.   Global cooperation ensued in Antarctica as well as Outer Space throughout the Cold War because of common-interest building rather than conflict resolution as the starting point for dialogues among allies and adversaries alike, brokered with science diplomacy.

As a proposition to stimulate dialogue – our forever challenge at personal-to-planetary levels is to operate with informed decisions across a ‘continuum of urgencies’ short-to-long term, in contrast to uninformed decisions that only operate at a moment in time, as demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic.  With informed decision-making as the engine of science diplomacy – without advocacy – transdisciplinary science will invigorate complicated geopolitical dialogues and empower synergies globally, especially with next-generation science diplomats alive today around the world, many of whom will be living in the 22nd century as stewards for the future of humanity across centuries.

Considering next steps of science with society short-to-long term – far enough into the future to be imaginative and hopeful with transdisciplinary inclusion, but close enough to be practical on a planetary level – the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (IDSSD) 2024-2033 offers a transdisciplinary path.  IDSSD culminates with the 5th International Polar Year (IPY-5) 2032-2033, which has legacy as the oldest continuous climate research program created by humankind, extending to IPY-1 in 1882-1883 with Earth-Sun connections considered after the Little Ice Age. 

Building common interests for the benefit of all on Earth – IPY-5 is an opportunity for the global science community to shine a bright light on the international continuity of global science with climate research exemplar across the previous 150 years.  Pushing the pulse of humankind across longer time spans – just as the first International Decade began after the IGY in 1961 – IPY-5 could be a transdisciplinary threshold to build common interests with science diplomacy among superpowers and all nations, awakening the first International Century with hope in our evolution as a globally-interconnected civilization.

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