Duncan Freeman

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The term “science diplomacy” has become widely used in recent years, especially in the developed economies of the “West”. The term has also been adopted in China, where it has been incorporated into academic discussion and policy making in the area of international science and technology cooperation. However, science and technology have been an element in China’s relations with the external world for many centuries, and moved centre stage in the relationship with the West since the 19th century. The success of China in creating scientific capacities in recent decades is the basis of the possibility for it to conduct its own science diplomacy. Yet, despite the adoption of the idea in recent government policy documents, it is unclear that a coherent new science diplomacy has emerged in China that is integrated into wider foreign policy. A question arises as to whether science diplomacy is still an emerging policy, or whether merely a marginal one. Many aspects of what is now called science diplomacy are continuations of China’s existing international science policies, which focus on global competition as well as cooperation. While science diplomacy is frequently considered to be a tool of soft power, scientific and technological capacities underlie hard power. In an environment where global military and economic competition dominates, science diplomacy may be overtaken by harder power considerations.

Riccardo Trobbiani and Andrea Pavón-Guinea

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The future of EU International Cultural Relations (ICR) will depend upon factors which this policy paper presents as internal and external to the EU. In reality, they influence each other and transcend political borders. The rise ofpopulist and nationalist forces takes place both within and outside Europe. The global nature of the challenges humanity faces in terms of trust, tolerance and education affect in different ways all countries and transversally impact our capacity to achieve sustainable development. Hard power seems to be gaining prominence over soft power and persuasion. Uses of soft power (and propaganda) persist in the framework of identity politics, where culture is increasingly regarded as a set of national features defined in oppositions to others, rather than a tool for dialogue and cooperation. In whatever direction these factors evolve, the foresight analysis presented in this paper points at a key finding: investing in stronger EU cooperation in International Cultural Relations, rather than Cultural Diplomacy, remains the best solution for EU leadership. An EU strategic approach to ICR rooted in development policy and inter-cultural dialogue bears the promise to facilitate cooperation among EU institutions, member states (MS) and their cultural institutes, as well as broader cultural networks based on innovative models. An approach based on subsidiarity and arm’s length relations with cultural actors can serve EU’s interests better than a top-down Cultural Diplomacy. However, a series of criticalities could potentially affect this emerging policy, which calls for some recommendations on the process and content of the approach under development. 

Jos Leijten

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This policy brief explores how innovation becomes an increasingly important topic in international relations, with a deep impact on collaboration as well as on competition between countries. It analyses how the patterns of techno-economic change lead to changes in the global distribution of innovative activities around the world. It outlines three near future scenarios of the international politics of innovation. The first, called “populism and protectionism” describes an international environment which is becoming dominated by populist and nationalist tendencies. The second outlines the consequences of an approach of “innovation as a global public good”, in which ultimately everybody benefits, and global collaboration is the dominant model. The third scenario is called “bottom-up innovation” and describes what happens to the international dimensions when large international firms and the regions in which they are based become the dominant forces. Together these scenarios describe the range of potential developments over the next 10 years. The final paragraph discusses what Europe can and should do in its external relations to provide adequate answers to the forces outlined in the three scenarios. It results in a vision, which is laid down in four policy directions: a) the European “open” model of research and innovation should remain the starting point; b) Europe should actively seek to build level playing fields for commercial, technological and innovation powers; c) Europe should identify and foster its technological strengths and the critical technologies that need special attention, both in offensive and defensive ways; and d) Europe must identify and spread the key social values and goals (e.g. in relation to quality of life, quality of labour, culture including privacy, and sustainability) that it wants to pursue in its internal and external innovation policies and collaborations. This vision must guide the development of an international innovation policy and the work of innovation diplomats.  

Riccardo Trobbiani and Constant Hatenboer 

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This study seeks to explore the possible developments facing the EU and its role of leadership in a global science diplomacy. Engaging in a foresight analysis, its aim is to provide a reflection on future scenarios and how EU action could influence and operate within them.  The emergence of a clear EU science diplomacy is faced with challenges which are both of a conceptual and material nature. On the one hand, the term remains subject to different interpretations and uses, and its value as a label for science cooperation initiatives is still unclear. On the other hand, unprecedented challenges like climate change require concerted science-based solutions. These seem increasingly harder to achieve in contexts where populist movements discredit scientific evidence as a basis for policy making or where scientific and technological progress is read in a purely competitive way. Within the EU, lack of support for further integration in domains that are not yet communitarised and distance between policy makers and the scientific community risk to nip EU science diplomacy in the bud.

Annamarie Bindenagel Šehović

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Health insecurities know no borders. The reigning World Health Organization (WHO) definition of health security is inadequate on three counts. First, it prioritises interventions to minimize vulnerability to adverse public health events for “national populations”. Second, while it includes reference to the “collective health” of populations across borders, it remains unclear whether these should also enjoy minimised vulnerabilities. Third, the definition leaves unresolved who or what is responsible for health security and for whom. This Policy Brief offers a renewed definition of health security that aims to address these gaps.

Georgios Terzis and Linsey Armstrong

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With both the EU and EU Member States maintaining a strong focus on culture and scientific diplomacy initiatives, it is imperative to explore how foreign correspondents covering these issues affect the perception of the European Union and its member states to audiences abroad. This policy brief attempts to examine the role foreign correspondents play in covering culture and science diplomacy, as well as in highlighting trends, challenges and opportunities for foreign correspondents currently stationed abroad.

Naciye Selin Senocak

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The ‘Europeanness’ of Turkey’s cultural identity has always been a divisive subject. Due to its geopolitical position and cultural identity as a Muslim secular state, Turkey is a cultural bridge between the West and Muslim countries, in theory making it particularly important in cultural diplomacy for EU foreign policy. Nevertheless, the diplomatic tension between Turkey and the EU over the accession and cultural issues have been barriers to the integration of certain states into the EU as is in part the case in Turkey’s 55-year wait for entry. This policy brief analyses the key shortcomings of EU cultural diplomacy and cooperation with Turkey, identifies the key opportunities and constraints and proposes recommendations for an effective strategic cooperation.

Antoine Hatzenberger

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This Policy Brief aims to understand how the EU’s endeavours in the fields of culture and scientific research have been received in Egypt and Tunisia, with the aim of developing a sustainable policy direction. After having identified examples of culture and science relations between the EU and MENA countries, the primary question was: What do the EU’s partners from the neighbouring countries in the South of the Mediterranean think of its approach to science, innovation and its enhancement of external cultural relations? The results of this study and the first conclusions of its analysis made it possible to make some recommendations to guide future EU policies. 

Neil Collins and Kristina Bekenova​

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The bilateral relations between Kazakhstan and the nine European Union countries examined in this policy brief are characterised by the existence of large ethnic communities or “beached diasporas”.  In this policy brief, the European diasporas living in Kazakhstan are discussed in the context of European cultural diplomacy. The brief analyses their role and that of various specialised ethnic-cultural agencies in EU cultural diplomacy. It asks how the promotion of culture via diasporas can assist the EU in its cultural diplomacy.

​Riccardo Trobbiani

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This policy brief analyses the key shortcomings of EU cultural cooperation in the ENP South and proposes recommendations for reform. It looks at both the strategies and instruments in place. Euro-Mediterranean cultural relations lack strategic thinking. On the one hand, EU policies on cultural cooperation fail to design a region-specific plan. On the other hand, EU external policies including the ENP do not clarify the role of culture and its relative importance vis-à-vis other foreign policy tools. Partially because of this lack of strategy, EU action remains short-termed, based on a donor-recipient relationship and under-resourced compared to its objectives.

​Annamarie Bindenagel Šehović

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Africa is (back) in sight. The belatedly formed coalition government in Germany, alongside the governments of France and the United Kingdom, has made ‘Africa’ a central focus of its political rhetoric. Numerous initiatives, from knowledge exchange to security exercises, stretch from the Sahel to South Africa. Translating these disparate endeavours into strategic policy can shape future perspectives and partnerships between the Europe, the European Union and Africa. This Policy Brief introduces key elements of the contemporary strategic context to offer a number of recommendations for a mutually useful re-engagement between the EU and the African Continent.

Domenico Valenza

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In June 2017, on the tenth anniversary of the first Central Asia Strategy, the Council of the European Union invited High Representative Federica Mogherini and the European Commission to draw a proposal for a new Strategy by late 2019. This decision provides an opportunity to review the shortcomings of the previous Strategy and to assess the evolving regional environment, in which Russia and China have consolidated their influence. 

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By presenting current challenges in Central Asia, this policy brief argues that the new Strategy should enhance EU cultural diplomacy in the region. In line with the increased role of culture in European external action, EU cultural diplomacy should meet local citizenry’s aspirations and demands, and give Brussels a comparative advantage over other regional powers.

​Neil Collins, Kristina Bekenova & Ainur Kagarmanova (Nazarbayev University)

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In the soft power context, health is increasingly seen as an area that generates particular diplomatic benefits because it is ostensibly non-political and can bring both immediate and long-term advantages equally to the donor and the recipient country. Since the European Union’s role in the international affairs is increasing, the EU is expected to play a central role in global health guided by the principles of solidarity, i.e. to provide an equitable and universal access to quality health services. Health diplomacy offers an intriguing insight into the dynamics in the EU’s approaches to Central Asia, the region that is incrementally becoming of interest to Europe.

Luk Van Langenhove and Elke Boers (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

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Science Diplomacy as a practice has a long past but only a short history. It became a policy concern of Foreign Affairs only recently. This policy brief points to the strengths and weaknesses of Science Diplomacy as a soft power instrument aimed at improving International Relations. It also lists a number of threats coming from populist and protectionist forces that hinder the further development of Science Diplomacy. At the same time, the current situation also bears opportunities such as the potential to develop a scientist-driven Science Diplomacy aimed at safeguarding the values of science and at strengthening the input of science in humanity coping with global problems. This can best be realised by establishing mission-driven networks of state policy-makers, scientists and relevant stakeholders.

Richard Higgott (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

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The last few years have seen a dramatic growth of interest in international cultural relations (ICR) and cultural diplomacy (CD) at the EU level. This policy paper identifies some of the key opportunities and constraints in the advancement of ICR and CD in the interactive relationship between culture and foreign policy. The opportunities in the relationship are perhaps better understood and are therefore identified in only cursory fashion. Less well articulated is the nature of the constraints facing European cultural foreign policy in the contemporary era. These constraints are often understood as being structural, institutional and agential in nature. The paper also identifies factors that may enhance the resilience of European actors engaged in ICR and CD in the face of constraint. Strategies of resilience are increasingly an essential element of ICR and CD.

Neil Collins and Kristina Bekenova (Nazarbayev University)

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At the beginning of her term, HR Federica Mogherini decided to make Twitter and Facebook fundamental tools for EU’s diplomacy and for promoting core European values of democracy, human rights, rule of law, good governance and international cooperation. Currently, 123 EU delegations are involved in virtual communication, dialogue and engagement through different platforms, such as Flickr, Twitter, and, Facebook. 

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The exercise of measuring how active missions abroad are in engaging with the local audience has not been conducted in Central Asia to date, although this is a region where European countries in particular have identified a need for greater diplomatic engagement. In view of the entry into force of the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA) between the European Union and Kazakhstan in May 2016, it is timely to evaluate how this ‘strong sign’ of the political investment by all EU Member States and institutions in a strategic partnership with Central Asia is reflected in the use of digital communication made by the European missions.

Annamarie Bindenagel Šehović (University of Warwick)

Newly, or newly re-emerging diseases present the latest health security challenges to be addressed by health diplomacy. The urgency of responding to these challenges is increasing as population movements and (always) fluid borders raise the attendant questions of how to secure the health of both mobile and sedentary populations. Movement implies both transfer and exchange, not only of people, but also of knowledge. This policy paper first traces such transfer to identify whether it is one-way or multi-directional. Second, it bases its results on primary-source findings from recent fieldwork in South Africa, drawing on policy, culture, science and industry transfers and / or exchange. Third and finally, and with a view towards both the independent role of the EU and its place within the G20, the paper articulates a number of proposals to enhance knowledge exchange in the service of international health diplomacy for global health security.

Riccardo Trobbiani (UNU-CRIS)

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On the 23rd of May 2017, the Council of the European Union adopted conclusions on Culture in the European Union's external relations, by welcoming the Joint Communication Towards an EU strategy for international cultural relations presented by the European Commission in June 2016. Besides calling for a bottom-up perspective including cultural actors, and based on the promotion of cultural diversity, the conclusions envisage the establishment of a working group to design an integrated EU strategic approach bringing together all the relevant policies and players. Complementarity with Member States and their cultural institutes is re-affirmed as a vital component of this process, but its content and modalities mostly remain to be defined.

Annamarie Bindenagel Šehović (University of Warwick)

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The first EL-CSID policy brief assesses the challenges to coordinating global health responses and puts forward a number of proposals to tackle them. 

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Abstract: The current context is one defined by varying degrees of disorder. This is the state of affairs in the realms of geopolitics to market (dis)regulation, of climate (dis)agreement to (il)legal migration status. Each of these has a bearing on global as well as local health. In fact, health is of particular importance as its causes and consequences, alongside its associated vulnerabilities and threats, crosses borders. As such, mounting a coordinated effort to respond to global health issues is an imperative. The question is, how to do it?

Richard Higgott & Luk Van Langenhove (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

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This policy paper offers an early assessment of the joint communication "Towards an EU Strategy of international cultural relations" delivered by High Representative Federica Mogherini last June. This communication was issued two weeks before the UK voted to leave the EU and just shy of three weeks before the HR also delivered "A Global Strategy for the European Union's Foreign and Security Policy". Timing of the strategy paper on international cultural relations was thus, to say the least, less than propitious. The other two events do and will cast massive shadows over it.