The Center of Innovation for Science, Technology, and Peacebuilding is evaluating the potential for international scientific and technical collaborations to aid in conflict prevention and resolution.
As a first step in framing this issue, the Center co-hosted “Science Diplomacy and the Prevention of Conflict” with USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy in February 2010. Center staff met with scientists and policy experts in Los Angeles to discuss new science diplomacy initiatives.
The Center is currently focused on two areas of opportunity where international cooperation is critical to enabling political and diplomatic progress:
- Science Diplomacy for Nuclear Threat Reduction: The Center is working with the National Academy of Sciences to explore science diplomacy’s potential to address issues of nuclear security, in alignment with USIP’s support of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.
- Water Scarcity, Environmental Change, and Conflict: The Center is investigating the challenges and opportunities presented by climate change and water scarcity in conflict zones. We are examining how scientific cooperation can create diplomatic breakthroughs in regions like the Tigris-Euphrates river basin and the Hindu Kush mountain ecosystem, where tension over water and other resources are ongoing or imminent.
Why have some instances of scientific collaboration (medical, technological, etc.) transformed themselves into noteworthy Track-Two diplomatic efforts? What is the active ingredient in past successful (and failed) initiatives to involve scientists and technologists in peacebuilding activity? To answer these questions, the Center is proposing the evaluation of select scientific and technical collaborations to identify these active ingredients for inclusion in future collaboration projects.
The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s).