Science diplomacy in the Global South—an introduction

Abstract

Science diplomacy (SD) is both a new and old subject. It is new in that the title ‘Science Diplomacy’ began to circulate about 15 years ago. The establishment of the Center for Science Diplomacy by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2008), the 50th anniversary of signing the Antarctic Treaty (Washington, DC, 2009), and the publication of the New Frontiers in Science Diplomacy report (Royal Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science 2010) attracted broad interest in the diplomatic and academic communities. As a result of these milestone events, more developed and developing countries have started acknowledging the foreign relations applications of SD as a new tool. They have declared their commitment to SD by including SD in their national strategy and policy documents (Turekian and Kishi 2017). Others have engaged in SD policies or activities de facto without calling them such. This opens a new area for cooperation that reaches beyond the realms of scientific communities to involve both government and scientific domains (Buyuktanir Karacan 2021).