AAAS TWAS 2022

Welcome to the 2022 AAAS-TWAS Course on Science Diplomacy!

We look forward to engaging with you all: participant pairs, speakers, facilitators and moderators throughout this course.
We hope that thanks to this course, you will learn about key definitions, actors, and frameworks of science diplomacy; explore key contemporary international policy issues; and build a skillset to develop careers at the intersection of science and diplomacy.

We expect more than 20 distinguished experts and practitioners to provide their invaluable contribution by sharing their expertise and experience throughout the course, starting from the inaugural session and through five thematic sessions: on diplomacy for science, science in diplomacy, science for diplomacy, science advice, and careers in science diplomacy. To make the course even more engaging, we also include a policy simulation on food security, led by the Centre for Systems Solutions, and group activities led by us.

This is the ninth edition of the AAAS-TWAS course. For the second year in a row we are experimenting with a new format whereby attendees participate in pairs made up of an early career scientist and a colleague from the diplomatic or policymaking arena. The 2021 pilot programme was well received and opens new opportunities to enhance collaboration across the scientific and diplomatic communities. Congratulations to participants on being part of the second cohort of science diplomacy pairs! We encourage you to read the following two stories about last year’s course, available here and here.

For the first time ever, you will have the opportunity to interact continuously with other attendees on the virtual space of the Underline platform called “gather.town”, where you can network amongst yourselves in a more life-like way. In gather.town, participant pairs have been provided with their own table where they can meet and talk with each other, and there are other spaces to facilitate interaction between participants, including pairs from last year’s course. We expect participant pairs to enjoy using this highly interactive platform and take advantage of gather.town as much as possible, not only to widen their understanding about science diplomacy and discuss how the scientific and diplomatic communities can address global challenges, but also to build personal and collaborative relationships that can last beyond the days of the workshop. In fact, it is our hope that these partnerships across disciplines can lead to long-lasting institutional collaborations among you that may create positive change in your countries and regions based on science diplomacy initiatives.

AAAS and TWAS have partnered since 2011 to organize a week-long summer course at TWAS headquarters in Trieste, Italy, to introduce science diplomacy to participants mostly from the global South and explore key contemporary international policy issues relating to science, technology, environment and health. Since 2014, more than 350 alumni from over 50 countries have participated. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the course has been held virtually in 2020 and 2021. Should you wish to know more about this partnership, you can find more information as well as articles about past courses here.

We look forward to an enriching and interactive course with you!
Sincerely,
The AAAS and TWAS organizing committee