La diplomatie scientifique est un domaine hybride construit tout autant par les pratiques des acteurs que par les travaux théoriques menés par les chercheurs en sciences humaines et sociales. Cette hybridité concerne également les acteurs de ce domaine qui peuvent être simultanément ou bien successivement, des scientifiques engagés dans la diplomatie, des diplomates qui par leur retour d’expérience et leur réflexion apportent leur contribution à la conceptualisation du domaine, des chercheurs en sciences humaines et sociales qui adoptent comme « terrain » ces nouvelles pratiques.

L’Université d’Ottawa et l’Ambassade de France au Canada ont pris en compte toute l’importance de ce domaine en créant une chaire que j’ai l’honneur d’occuper pendant deux ans avec mon collègue Patrick Fafard. Nous serons ainsi tout à la fois des chercheurs, tentant de faire avancer la réflexion interdisciplinaire sur les politiques de santé dans leur dimension internationale et diplomatique tout en étant d’une certaine manière des « science diplomats » favorisant le développement de relations scientifiques fertiles entre le Canada et la France. Notre démarche sera menée en lien étroit avec Alexandra Gheciu qui m’a accueilli à l’Université d’Ottawa dans le cadre d’une résidence de recherche au mois de mai.

En guise de premier contact avec ce domaine sont ici proposés quelques extraits, choisis par lui, d’un article du meilleur spécialiste international de ces questions, Pierre Bruno Ruffini, avec lequel nous travaillons régulièrement depuis 2018 et qui sera étroitement associé aux travaux de la chaire.

Voir l’entretien :    

Comment définir la Diplomatie scientifique

Texte de Pierre Bruno Ruffini extrait de (2022) “Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Challenge of Science Diplomacy”, in Christian Lequesne (Ed.), Ministries of Foreign Affairs in the World – Actors of State Diplomacy, Leiden: Brill, 228-250.

Science diplomacy (SD) entered the vocabulary of international relations a dozen years ago and has since become very popular among practitioners, policymakers and academics. As a first approach, SD refers to a large array of professional practices at the intersection of diplomacy (the implementation of a state’s foreign policy through privileged ways of mediation and negotiation) and science (understood as the activity of research, all disciplines taken together, and the incorporation of its results into technology). Science and technology (S&T) issues permeate important and various aspects of diplomacy, whether in the context of country-to-country relations or at the multilateral level. From a state’s perspective, S&T is an essential resource for development and competitiveness. They are also a matter of national sovereignty and can be used as instruments of influence and power. From a global perspective, they are essential resources to face the threats to the planet and to mankind, of which the Covid-19 pandemic gives the most recent illustration. In its broad understanding, SD encompasses both these dimensions, national and global.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) established in 2008 its Center for Science Diplomacy and co-organised with the British Royal Society a conference on the New Frontiers of Science Diplomacy in 2009, which gave birth the year after to a highly publicised report. Highlighting interactions between the sphere of science and the sphere of diplomacy, this seminal report laid the foundations of SD by categorising it in three parts: informing foreign policy objectives with scientific advice (science in diplomacy); facilitating international science co-operation (diplomacy for science); and using science co-operation to improve international relations between countries (science for diplomacy). 

Another taxonomy came up a few years later identifying actions to be labelled as SD as the ones designed to ‘directly advance a country’s national needs’, from ‘exercising soft power to serving economic interests to promoting innovation’; to ‘address cross-border interests’ such as ‘matters relating to transborder shared resources’; and to meet ‘global needs and challenges’ and ‘advanc[e] global interests’ regarding shared challenges across borders (climate change, global biodiversity, etc.) and spaces beyond national jurisdictions such as polar regions and outer space. These leading contributions have shaped practitioners’ discourse on SD to focus on issues combining scientific knowledge, foreign policies of states and governance of global challenges. This widely disseminated discourse has highlighted what is so peculiar with SD and could explain a large part of its appeal: the promise of a better world through reasonable and smart use of scientific knowledge in international relations. 

Two levers should be activated to this end: scientific co-operation, which can help maintain or restore dialogue between countries by using the universal language of science; and sound scientific expertise, which is critical to informing the collective action of states in the face of global threats. Each of these two registers—reducing geopolitical tensions and tackling global challenges—acknowledge how S&T can shape the international order.

Voir également l’ouvrage de référence, traduit en plusieurs langues :

Ruffini, Pierre-Bruno. Science et diplomatie: Une nouvelle dimension des relations inter- nationales (Paris: Éditions du Cygne, 2015). 

Pour une approche complémentaire :

Griset,  Pascal, « Innovation Diplomacy: A New Concept for Ancient Practices? », The Hague Journal of diplomacy, Vol 15, issue 3, Online 19 august 2020, pp 383-397.

La diplomatie scientifique est un domaine hybride construit tout autant par les pratiques des acteurs que par les travaux théoriques menés par les chercheurs en sciences humaines et sociales. Cette hybridité concerne également les acteurs de ce domaine qui peuvent être simultanément ou bien successivement, des scientifiques engagés dans la diplomatie, des diplomates qui par leur retour d’expérience et leur réflexion apportent leur contribution à la conceptualisation du domaine, des chercheurs en sciences humaines et sociales qui adoptent comme « terrain » ces nouvelles pratiques.

L’Université d’Ottawa et l’Ambassade de France au Canada ont pris en compte toute l’importance de ce domaine en créant une chaire que j’ai l’honneur d’occuper pendant deux ans avec mon collègue Patrick Fafard. Nous serons ainsi tout à la fois des chercheurs, tentant de faire avancer la réflexion interdisciplinaire sur les politiques de santé dans leur dimension internationale et diplomatique tout en étant d’une certaine manière des « science diplomats » favorisant le développement de relations scientifiques fertiles entre le Canada et la France. Notre démarche sera menée en lien étroit avec Alexandra Gheciu qui m’a accueilli à l’Université d’Ottawa dans le cadre d’une résidence de recherche au mois de mai.

En guise de premier contact avec ce domaine sont ici proposés quelques extraits, choisis par lui, d’un article du meilleur spécialiste international de ces questions, Pierre Bruno Ruffini, avec lequel nous travaillons régulièrement depuis 2018 et qui sera étroitement associé aux travaux de la chaire.

Voir l’entretien :    

Comment définir la Diplomatie scientifique

Texte de Pierre Bruno Ruffini extrait de (2022) “Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Challenge of Science Diplomacy”, in Christian Lequesne (Ed.), Ministries of Foreign Affairs in the World – Actors of State Diplomacy, Leiden: Brill, 228-250.

Science diplomacy (SD) entered the vocabulary of international relations a dozen years ago and has since become very popular among practitioners, policymakers and academics. As a first approach, SD refers to a large array of professional practices at the intersection of diplomacy (the implementation of a state’s foreign policy through privileged ways of mediation and negotiation) and science (understood as the activity of research, all disciplines taken together, and the incorporation of its results into technology). Science and technology (S&T) issues permeate important and various aspects of diplomacy, whether in the context of country-to-country relations or at the multilateral level. From a state’s perspective, S&T is an essential resource for development and competitiveness. They are also a matter of national sovereignty and can be used as instruments of influence and power. From a global perspective, they are essential resources to face the threats to the planet and to mankind, of which the Covid-19 pandemic gives the most recent illustration. In its broad understanding, SD encompasses both these dimensions, national and global.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) established in 2008 its Center for Science Diplomacy and co-organised with the British Royal Society a conference on the New Frontiers of Science Diplomacy in 2009, which gave birth the year after to a highly publicised report. Highlighting interactions between the sphere of science and the sphere of diplomacy, this seminal report laid the foundations of SD by categorising it in three parts: informing foreign policy objectives with scientific advice (science in diplomacy); facilitating international science co-operation (diplomacy for science); and using science co-operation to improve international relations between countries (science for diplomacy). 

Another taxonomy came up a few years later identifying actions to be labelled as SD as the ones designed to ‘directly advance a country’s national needs’, from ‘exercising soft power to serving economic interests to promoting innovation’; to ‘address cross-border interests’ such as ‘matters relating to transborder shared resources’; and to meet ‘global needs and challenges’ and ‘advanc[e] global interests’ regarding shared challenges across borders (climate change, global biodiversity, etc.) and spaces beyond national jurisdictions such as polar regions and outer space. These leading contributions have shaped practitioners’ discourse on SD to focus on issues combining scientific knowledge, foreign policies of states and governance of global challenges. This widely disseminated discourse has highlighted what is so peculiar with SD and could explain a large part of its appeal: the promise of a better world through reasonable and smart use of scientific knowledge in international relations. 

Two levers should be activated to this end: scientific co-operation, which can help maintain or restore dialogue between countries by using the universal language of science; and sound scientific expertise, which is critical to informing the collective action of states in the face of global threats. Each of these two registers—reducing geopolitical tensions and tackling global challenges—acknowledge how S&T can shape the international order.

Voir également l’ouvrage de référence, traduit en plusieurs langues :

Ruffini, Pierre-Bruno. Science et diplomatie: Une nouvelle dimension des relations inter- nationales (Paris: Éditions du Cygne, 2015). 

Pour une approche complémentaire :

Griset,  Pascal, « Innovation Diplomacy: A New Concept for Ancient Practices? », The Hague Journal of diplomacy, Vol 15, issue 3, Online 19 august 2020, pp 383-397.