This online seminar series, which consist of web discussions, brings together leading experts and institutions together to discuss how Knowledge Diplomacy (KD) is highly relevant in both academic and policy circles. This is an opportunity for academics, policymakers, practitioners and students to join an exciting conversation and exchange ideas in the emerging concept of knowledge diplomacy.
Knowledge Diplomacy (KD) is highly relevant in both academic and policy circles addressing, the major issues of our time, relating to the sharing and openness of knowledge between nations and multilateral agencies with both theoretical and practical dimensions.
The concept of Knowledge Diplomacy – a tool of diplomacy by virtue of university-level research, the transactions of scholarly exchange between students, faculty, and peers- gives us a lens through which to consider the future of international knowledge production and collaboration at the intersection of international higher education, international relations, science, diplomacy and nation branding.
The need to share knowledge globally, at speed and with trust, and to develop common-interest-building strategies through Science/Knowledge Diplomacy has never been greater. Higher Education with its knowledge production and analytical capability and transnational networks is key.
Bringing together leading experts and higher education institutions, these online discussions are open to the public and will be an opportunity to hear as many views and positions as possible, with a view to mapping out an agenda for future development.
The first part of this series explored the challenges that COVID-19 and climate change have exposed in the information economy and ecology. The second part of this series will both expand and locate the concept in relation to cities.
Bringing together experts from various universities and institutions, this new seminar series is a collaboration between the Goethe Institut, British Council (France and Germany), University of London (London and Paris) and is supported by ICR Research.
The Knowledge Diplomacy and Cities Series of online discussions is the second phase of the University of London’s exploration of knowledge diplomacy. The first phase, in June 2021, looked at the key role of knowledge diplomacy in relation to the COVID19 pandemic and Climate Change. This second phase both expands and locates the concept in relation to cities.
Cities are where universities and others involved in knowledge creation and exchange form complex local networks and partnerships, and act as the key sites of the cross-border dynamics through which strategic and dynamic transnational networks can be formed, and thereby offer potential for positive change.
The Knowledge Diplomacy and Cities Series aims to dig deeper into the dynamics of global city cooperation today, by focusing on three European capitals: London, Paris and Berlin. It asks what potential these cities, and cities more generally, have for generating dialogue and cooperation in the 21st century, through the lenses of Knowledge Diplomacy and the future of Higher Education. The events series will bring together experts from academia and cities to consider this question which we believe requires urgent attention.
The Series brings stakeholders together to address global challenges by exploring how Knowledge Diplomacy can help:
The programme consists of four separate web discussions involving leading experts from cities and higher education. The events are open to the public and will be an opportunity to hear as many views and positions as possible, with a view to mapping out an agenda for future development.
Participants will be asked, after the event, to reflect on what they have heard and prepare a short text in the form of a proposition for practical change. These will inform the development of future events and be published to stimulate further discussion.
Culture, in public debates is part of a wider city narrative but it is too often labelled as a ‘sector’ when it is a much wider concept that embraces everyone and everything in society.
Their capacity for regeneration allows cities to be long-lived and survive more formal, closed systems, such as nation-states. Today, cities are key sites for the making of new norms and identities, for cultural and institutional change and for their emergence as ‘smart cities’, as sites and models of innovation, where there are opportunities for developing digital cultural services and evolving new strategies for our increasingly connected world. Debates about ‘cultural policy’ therefore may be too limited when considering the future.
What impact will these digital cultural innovations have on knowledge creation and exchange? What roles will universities, cultural organisations and networks, cities play, and how will the local and the global transform each other as we move towards the metaverse?
View event details and access webinar report and video recording.
The event focuses on the relationship between places and knowledge creation. The online seminar will discuss knowledge creation, the urban ecologies of Berlin, London and Paris in post-Brexit Europe, and the potential of collaboration for sustainable futures.
The panel discussion will bring experts together with an audience and explore the implications for practical action and collaboration as we work through the effects of COVID-19 and start to imagine how the nexus of culture, education and civic governance will emerge in a post-pandemic world. In addition, the discussion will examine this renewed configuration and its potential to help tackle global challenges.
View event details and access webinar report and video recording.
Knowledge Diplomacy is an orchestra of collaborative, representative and negotiation processes that aims to establish consensual knowledge on various issues. Our discourse on Knowledge Diplomacy focuses upon the potential to address crisis situations and major problems affecting our world today.
In the recent decade, crisis situations, such as violent conflicts, have increased substantially and brought more complexity to the search for solutions in addressing existing emergencies. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has witnessed a sequence of enormous losses in regional stability and human lives that affect Asian, African, Latin America and Caribbean regions, and most recently, Eastern Europe.
The event is an opportunity for an interdisciplinary panel of experts from academia and diplomacy to discuss the implications for the creation, exchange and sharing of knowledge in the context of the crisis situations, specifically in the context of the war in Ukraine.
View event details and access webinar report and video recording.
This event builds on our earlier event in June 2021 in which the important point was made that during the last couple of decades, while an unprecedented shift in economic models and development was taking place, the relevant information on climate change was not being shared equitably.
Berlin, Paris and London are all members of the C40 group of cities committed to sharing knowledge on climate action. How can cities in the UK and Europe work with each other and with their multiple local and national stakeholders to address the challenge of climate policy through knowledge creation and exchange? Who are the key stakeholders in this process? What modes of dialogue and cooperation can cities use to make the greatest impact? How can universities and cities develop such knowledge platforms further? How can knowledge sharing turn into meaningful action?
View event details and access webinar report and video recording.
The need to share knowledge globally, at speed and with trust, and to develop common-interest-building strategies through Science/Knowledge Diplomacy has never been greater as we work through the global pandemic and at the same time face up to the climate crisis.
Bringing together speakers from various universities, this new seminar series co-organised with SOAS and CDE, along with the support of ICR, will aim to create a space to look back at some of the challenges and exchange ideas on knowledge diplomacy in relation to the COVID19 pandemic, as well as the Climate Change and Sustainability.
The policy choices we make now will be crucial to the prospects for the global future. Recent global research has suggested that COVID-19 has shone a bright light on issues of how current economic models handle information and knowledge.
Some of these are familiar issues that have long been understood but not acted upon effectively – for example, the danger that current systems of intellectual property and patent protection are actually inimical to delivering a cost-effective vaccine available to all, whereas treating knowledge as a public good is much more likely to deliver efficient outcomes for the entire global population.
COVID-19 has demonstrated that traditional models of knowledge production and dissemination are failing us; scientific knowledge is becoming weaponised and hyper-partisan, and confidence in this knowledge is falling.
The aim of the event is to explore the role of knowledge diplomacy in the pandemic with contributions from leading experts and an invitation to policymakers and students to participate and share their views.
Missed it? Check the event web page for the full description or watch the event recording.
Despite the crucial dependency on developing a shared global understanding of the science of climate change, and the role of science diplomacy in ensuring access to knowledge, promoting it, and influencing public opinion, there is very little research on how science diplomacy can be utilised to tackle global challenges such as climate change.
There are also questions about the effectiveness of science diplomacy. In the international climate regime, the issues of science intermingle with those of diplomacy and interact with them. For example, examination of the IPCC highlights that the extent to which diplomats understand and use scientific knowledge, as well as represent contested national interests during major negotiations, can jeopardise science diplomacy’s effectiveness.
The consensus that exists among scientists about the origins and long‐term risks of climate change does not necessarily translate into a consensus among diplomats over an appropriate course of action, raising questions over the contribution of science/knowledge diplomacy.
The aim of the event is to explore the role of knowledge diplomacy in relation to the climate change crisis, with contributions from leading experts and an invitation to policymakers and students to participate and share their views.
Missed it? Check the event web page for the full description or watch the event recording.
