Goals, Actors and Governance of Science Diplomacy: the Case of Science and Innovation Centers

This paper responds to the growing interest in science diplomacy (SD) as an academic concept (Flink & Rüffin, 2019; Kaltofen, Acuto, & Blackstock, 2018; Ruffini, 2017), a potential new paradigm to public policy and a practice in foreign policy (Fähnrich, 2015). Given that the academic scholarship on SD is still in its infancy and the discourse on SD is normatively coloured, this paper offers an empirical study of SD that draws on novel evidence. To this end, a comparative analysis of an instance in practice, i.e. an instrument of SD is conducted. Three aspects deserve closer attention: 1) to extract the goals and motivations linked to SD, 2) to identify the actors of SD and 3) to disentangle the governance arrangements of SD. In response, Science and Innovation Centers (SIC), a novel and unique instrument on their own, are selected as instances of practice. SIC are distinct units, or satellite institutes, established by governments abroad, operating at the nexus of higher education, research, innovation, and diplomacy. Several countries among which are Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, to name a few, have already installed SIC. However, SIC in themselves remain academically under-researched and largely unexplored (Berg, 2010; Epping, 2018; Rüffin, 2018). The uniqueness and novelty of the SIC lays for instance in their organizational set-up and their holistic approach. SIC respond to calls for global excellence and are situated in the logics of competition and cooperation (Powell, Baker, & Fernandez, 2017). However, they differ from other instruments given, for instance, their explicit links to foreign policy goals (Epping, 2019; Rüffin, 2018). A comparative analysis of two regional cases, Germany and Switzerland, will be conducted drawing on a combination of more than 40 interviews with key stakeholders and document analysis. Doing so will generate solid evidence on the goals and motivations, the actor structures and governance arrangements of SIC and hence SD. Accordingly, this paper contributes to the literature in a dual way: firstly, it enriches the scholarly understanding of the emerging concept of SD and secondly, it offers first hand insights on SIC, a unique policy instrument that is increasingly adopted by highly innovative countries.