The EU-Project S4D4C (Using Science for/in Diplomacy for Addressing Global Challenges) is organising its final networking meeting entitled “Addressing Global Challenges Together: the Role of Science Diplomacy”. The conference will take place from Monday 15th March to Friday 19th March 2021, bringing the science diplomacy community together during one week in a virtual environment.
The final networking meeting will celebrate the end of the S4D4C project and address science diplomacy perspectives in view of some of the most palpable global challenges our societies are coping with: climate change, food/water sustainability, cybersecurity, and global pandemics. The event aims at advancing in the establishment of a lively European and global science diplomacy community while providing its practitioners with additional tools, knowledge and policy recommendations.
The meeting will combine 15 plenary sessions and 6 satellite sessions.
The Plenary Sessions will be held every day from 1pm to 3:15pm (CET, UTC+1) and will comprise:
- High-level conversations with EU stakeholders
- High-level roundtables
- S4D4C on the spotlight
- Plenary roundtables
- Plenary talks
The satellite sessions will cover different regional and thematic SD aspects. The German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) is contributing to the conference by organising two S4D4C satellite sessions, chaired by the German Aerospace Center/ Project Management Agency:
Environment and Sustainability: Improved Communication For Solving Global Challenges (Tuesday, 16th of March, 16:00-17:30)
Science diplomacy is important in times of global challenges, and the pandemic has highlighted this again. Given these challenges, it is now crucial to take the partnership between policy, diplomacy and science to a new level: For solving complex, global challenges scientists, diplomats and policy makers should openly and understandably communicate their targets and measures. This interactive session has the aim to reflect upon strategies for a better exchange among different stakeholders at national, bilateral, European and multilateral level. The thematical focus is on activities in the field “Environment and Sustainability”: Experts with long-lasting international experiences will share success stories, discuss main challenges in the communication between relevant stakeholders and provide recommendations for future actions, also in the context of the EU Green Deal, the UN climate and biodiversity negotiations and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Open Science: Joint Efforts for a Better Future (Wednesday, 17th of March, 10:30-12:00)
The Corona crisis has once again shown that politicians depend on research findings to make competent political decisions. Research is therefore an important foundation for knowledge-based policy: it provides information about causes and effects. It can also identify concrete political needs and options for action. This makes free access to scientific literature and primary data (on the Internet) all the more important. It is an objective of the international open science movement to improve accessibility and reusability of research and data. And it is already on the political agenda, too: In its digital strategy, the German Federal Ministry of education and research has set a target of making 75% of all new German publications openly accessible by 2025. On the European political agenda, the strategic priorities "Open science, Open innovation, Open to the world" that came into force in 2015 coincided with the consideration of the concept of a science diplomacy for Europe. But what are the implications and applications of open science in science diplomacy? In this session, experts with long-lasting experiences will share success stories, discuss main challenges at this interface and provide recommendations for future actions.
