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Closing the Gap Between Emerging Initiatives and Integrated Strategies to Strengthen Science Diplomacy in Latin America
Science diplomacy is a fast-growing field of research, policy, and practice dedicated to understanding and reinforcing the connections between science and international affairs to tackle national, regional, and global issues. By aligning science and diplomacy, countries can attract talent, strengthe...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8072213/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33912788 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frma.2021.664880 |
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author | López-Vergès, Sandra Macías-Navarro, Lorena Hernández-Mondragón, Alma Cristal Corrales-Aguilar, Eugenia Soler, Marga Gual Guerra, Melania |
author_facet | López-Vergès, Sandra Macías-Navarro, Lorena Hernández-Mondragón, Alma Cristal Corrales-Aguilar, Eugenia Soler, Marga Gual Guerra, Melania |
author_sort | López-Vergès, Sandra |
collection | PubMed |
description | Science diplomacy is a fast-growing field of research, policy, and practice dedicated to understanding and reinforcing the connections between science and international affairs to tackle national, regional, and global issues. By aligning science and diplomacy, countries can attract talent, strengthen their national research ecosystems, provide avenues for participation of scientists in policy, and coordinate integrated solutions to challenges with technical dimensions. While Latin America has a long tradition of bilateral and regional cooperation, science still plays a marginal role in foreign policy, as has become evidenced by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With few exceptions, Latin American nations have a relatively immature science, technology, and innovation ecosystem, compounded by low public and private investments in research, coexisting with profound socio-economic inequalities, and large vulnerable populations. Such challenging conditions have created barriers to a fluid relationship between science and diplomacy, fundamentally characterized by inefficient communication between scientists and policymakers, weak collaboration channels, and duplicated roles, which altogether perpetuate siloed mentalities and a lack of trust between the two communities. Over the last decade, a first influential wave of Latin American scientists, diplomats, and other professionals, including five of the co-authors, have undertaken science diplomacy training provided by specialized organizations. Through these experiences, we recognized the need to elevate awareness and build capacities in science diplomacy in our respective countries and overall, across Latin America. Here, we describe emerging efforts and mechanisms to bridge the gap between scientists and policymakers at the national and regional level. Furthermore, we offer recommendations to amplify the impact of those pioneering initiatives toward consolidating a robust science diplomacy practice across the region. The national experiences described from Costa Rica, Mexico, and Panama can serve as a roadmap for other Latin American nations in the early process of developing a science diplomacy strategy, so they can also align themselves to a collective pathway. Most critically, we propose a way forward so that Latin America can leapfrog beyond disjointed training of individuals into integrated institutional strategies that can harness the tools of science diplomacy to enhance science-informed multilateral cooperation and enable more effective science-informed policymaking. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8072213 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-80722132021-04-27 Closing the Gap Between Emerging Initiatives and Integrated Strategies to Strengthen Science Diplomacy in Latin America López-Vergès, Sandra Macías-Navarro, Lorena Hernández-Mondragón, Alma Cristal Corrales-Aguilar, Eugenia Soler, Marga Gual Guerra, Melania Front Res Metr Anal Research Metrics and Analytics Science diplomacy is a fast-growing field of research, policy, and practice dedicated to understanding and reinforcing the connections between science and international affairs to tackle national, regional, and global issues. By aligning science and diplomacy, countries can attract talent, strengthen their national research ecosystems, provide avenues for participation of scientists in policy, and coordinate integrated solutions to challenges with technical dimensions. While Latin America has a long tradition of bilateral and regional cooperation, science still plays a marginal role in foreign policy, as has become evidenced by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With few exceptions, Latin American nations have a relatively immature science, technology, and innovation ecosystem, compounded by low public and private investments in research, coexisting with profound socio-economic inequalities, and large vulnerable populations. Such challenging conditions have created barriers to a fluid relationship between science and diplomacy, fundamentally characterized by inefficient communication between scientists and policymakers, weak collaboration channels, and duplicated roles, which altogether perpetuate siloed mentalities and a lack of trust between the two communities. Over the last decade, a first influential wave of Latin American scientists, diplomats, and other professionals, including five of the co-authors, have undertaken science diplomacy training provided by specialized organizations. Through these experiences, we recognized the need to elevate awareness and build capacities in science diplomacy in our respective countries and overall, across Latin America. Here, we describe emerging efforts and mechanisms to bridge the gap between scientists and policymakers at the national and regional level. Furthermore, we offer recommendations to amplify the impact of those pioneering initiatives toward consolidating a robust science diplomacy practice across the region. The national experiences described from Costa Rica, Mexico, and Panama can serve as a roadmap for other Latin American nations in the early process of developing a science diplomacy strategy, so they can also align themselves to a collective pathway. Most critically, we propose a way forward so that Latin America can leapfrog beyond disjointed training of individuals into integrated institutional strategies that can harness the tools of science diplomacy to enhance science-informed multilateral cooperation and enable more effective science-informed policymaking. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8072213/ /pubmed/33912788 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frma.2021.664880 Text en Copyright © 2021 López-Vergès, Macías-Navarro, Hernández-Mondragón, Corrales-Aguilar, Soler and Guerra. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Research Metrics and Analytics López-Vergès, Sandra Macías-Navarro, Lorena Hernández-Mondragón, Alma Cristal Corrales-Aguilar, Eugenia Soler, Marga Gual Guerra, Melania Closing the Gap Between Emerging Initiatives and Integrated Strategies to Strengthen Science Diplomacy in Latin America |
title | Closing the Gap Between Emerging Initiatives and Integrated Strategies to Strengthen Science Diplomacy in Latin America |
title_full | Closing the Gap Between Emerging Initiatives and Integrated Strategies to Strengthen Science Diplomacy in Latin America |
title_fullStr | Closing the Gap Between Emerging Initiatives and Integrated Strategies to Strengthen Science Diplomacy in Latin America |
title_full_unstemmed | Closing the Gap Between Emerging Initiatives and Integrated Strategies to Strengthen Science Diplomacy in Latin America |
title_short | Closing the Gap Between Emerging Initiatives and Integrated Strategies to Strengthen Science Diplomacy in Latin America |
title_sort | closing the gap between emerging initiatives and integrated strategies to strengthen science diplomacy in latin america |
topic | Research Metrics and Analytics |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8072213/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33912788 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frma.2021.664880 |
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