Program Overview

Introduction to the Rockefeller University Program

The Rockefeller University is a diverse, intellectual scientific village where students and faculty work together to make transformative discoveries in bioscience.

The Hurford Science Diplomacy Initiative

The Hurford Science Diplomacy Initiative, sponsored by the Hurford Foundation, aims to help early career scientists understand the global context for their work and thus enable them to work more effectively at international levels.

Course Title

Science Diplomacy 2021: Faces of Science Diplomacy

Instructors

• Jesse Ausubel, Director of Program for the Human Environment
• Mandë Holford, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Hunter College and American Museum of Natural History

Synopsis

The course spans wide-ranging activities connecting science and technology with international affairs, with particular attention to global health and environment. The series of eight seminars will sample the current landscape of Science Diplomacy issues, programs, and organizations. The goals of the course are to help early career life scientists think more systematically about the global potential of their work and become acquainted with the people, networks, and resources available for scientific cooperation.

Course Outline

• Week 1: An Introduction to Science Diplomacy
  • Speakers: Jesse Ausubel and Mandë Holford
  • Description: Three dimensions of policy: informing foreign policy objectives with scientific advice, facilitating international science cooperation, and using science cooperation to improve international relations between countries.
• Week 2: Who Will Do Science? Who is moving and not moving from where and to where, and why?
  • Guest Speakers: Julie Baer and Alan Goodman, International Institute for Education
• Week 3: Diplomacy for Science mounting cooperative international programs in ocean science
  • Session Leader: Jesse Ausubel
• Week 4: Doing science in hostile conditions: the case of Latin America
  • Guest Speakers: Claudio Bifano and Marino J. González
• Week 5: A view from Washington DC: The US National Academies Roundtable on Science Diplomacy
  • Guest Speaker: Frances Colon, President, Jasperi Consulting
• Week 6: The Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the Case of Plastics
  • Guest Speakers: Prof. Elva Escobar Briones and Michelle Wyman, Executive director, Global Council for Science and the Environment
• Week 7: Who will make vaccines, who will get vaccines?
  • Guest Speakers: Dr. Cameron Bess and Dr. Daniel Gilmer
• Week 8: Science Diplomacy Is it all too rational? Is policy really data driven? What about politics?
  • Guest Speakers: Laura Manley and Dr. Mahlet Mesfin
• Week 9: Who will do science? Putting together a good global picture, what needs to be done
  • Speakers: Jesse Ausubel and Mandë Holford

Course Schedule

• Dates: Thursdays, Mar. 25-May 20, 2021
• Time: 3-5pm

Student Science Diplomacy Project

Project: Science Soap Box

Science Soapbox is a student-run podcast at the intersection of science, policy, and advocacy.

Additional Reading List

• The Challenge of Building Science Diplomacy Capabilities for Early Career Academic Investigators
• A tale of two states
• The Science of Science Policy: A Handbook
• Global Research Infrastructures: A Decade of Science Diplomacy
• New Frontiers in Science Diplomacy: Navigating the Changing Balance of Power
• Promoting Scientific Cooperation in Times of Diplomatic Challenges
• Science and Technology in US International Affairs
• Diplomacy for the 21st Century: Embedding a Culture of Science and Technology Throughout the Department of State