On the campus of CERN Science Gateway (©GESDA/von Loebell)
Climate, food and space – and other headline-making topics such as quantum computing and the future of international relations – featured prominently on the second day of the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipation Summit.
The three-day GESDA Summit, held for the second year in a row in the CERN Science Gateway, highlighted the intersection of diplomacy, science, and technology.
The Summit continued on Thursday with alumni from GESDA’s Global Curriculum for Anticipatory Leadership eager to catch up on their latest activities. Slovenian diplomat Sabine Stadler, chief strategist of her nation’s foreign ministry and a former ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, explained how she’s been spreading the use of science diplomacy by her nation’s diplomatic corps in everything from training to strategic foresight.
“If you want to sound credible, you have to have just a little bit of an inkling, knowledge, smells like science,” she said with a smile. “I also strongly believe that science diplomacy is the key to making our future plans credible, more tangible, and useful.”
Scientists, diplomats, policymakers, innovators, executives and citizens from around the world took on some of the global challenges in a series of panel discussions, anticipatory briefings and other gatherings.
At a panel session on climate resilience and food security, Rose Marks, a botanist and assistant professor at the University of Illnois, emphasized the importance of “resurrection plants” that have a high dessication tolerance and can enter into a state of quiesence, or dormancy, but spring back to life with rain.
Hanging off the edge of cliffs, and found among rocks and the barren desert in places such as Brazil and South Africa, these plants are a true testament to nature’s ingenuity, she said, and research into how they function has “enormous potential for practical solutions” such as improving the long-term dry storage of vaccines, creating life-sustaining tools for interplanetary travel, and new ways of fighting climate change.
“What if nature has already engineered a solution to this threat? Now imagine if we could harness this ability,” she said. “This has actually been a long-standing goal of dessication tolerance research.”
A session on governing space for the benefit of all looked at how the growing public and private space programs blur the line between exploration and exploitation. She pointed to a need for international governance to ensure people share equitably in the benefits and preserve the shared resources.
“The governance of space resources and how to share them equitably, I think, that is one of the biggest challenges,” said Tanja Masson-Zwaan, an assistant professor and deputy director of the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University.
“There are so many topics that are relevant. It does not necessarily mean that you share every dollar of profit,” she said. “It’s the use and exploration. We have to do them together.”
A panel discussion on the future of corals (©GESDA/von Loebell)
Translating knowledge into decision-making
A session on the use of science and diplomacy to save corals reefs looked at how climate change, pollution, and other human activities degrade these vital ecosystems.
“All of these different activities together really are destroying the ecosystem of a reef system. We help a government to prioritize what are the most important actions to be taken,” said Fanny Douvere, head of the UNESCO World Heritage Center’s Marine Program.
Douvere said her program works with and pushes governments to turn scientific information into decision-making. “We can have all the science we want,” she said, “but we have to turn it into decision-making.”
The summit also offered a live demo of the new Geneva Public Portal to Anticipation, an interactive installation that uses art, science and diplomacy to empower visitors to craft their fictional futures based on science trends of the GESDA Science Breakthrough Radar®.
A panel session on preparing for quantum computing (©GESDA/von Loebell)
Panel sessions and anticipatory briefings based on the new Radar
Other discussions focused on questions and predictions over the next quarter-century in fields such as:
𖤓 How can scientific advancements drive food sustainability?
𖤓 How will quantum breakthroughs transform our world?
𖤓 What are some potential developments in exploiting space-based resources?
𖤓 How can academics, industry leaders, and policymakers collaborate best to build capacity globally, leveraging the 2025 UN Year of Quantum Science and Technology?
𖤓 How can they activate a market for quantum computing applications for the benefit of all humanity?
𖤓 How is the future of global relations being shaped by shifting power dynamics and the rise of informal international organizations, and how will these elements influence global diplomacy?