Science Diplomacy: Lessons From the Pacific

The Pacific region is a perfect example of science diplomacy for Europe, says Professor Jean-François Marini in an interview with Horizon Magazine. Marini, coordinator of the EU-funded PACE-Net Plus project and former advisor to the French government on science diplomacy, spoke on the diplomatic possibilities of scientific capacity-building.

PACE-Net Plus recently united 16 partners across the Pacific and the EU to strengthen research cooperation between the two regions. As Marini pointed out, several Pacific issues are rapidly becoming global ones, such as deep sea mining and blue growth. Enhanced collaboration between European and Pacific states, then, is only logical.

“One of the outcomes that emerged is the idea that an observatory of climate change in the Pacific region would be a good tool to help ensure that scientific knowledge serves local governance. We also think, and this is important, that each country in the region should have a scientific coordinator, or a chief scientist, a function that is often still lacking.”

The full article is available here.

Photo by Darko Stojanovic I CC 0