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AbstractScience diplomacy has caught remarkable attention in public policy and academic research over the last fifteen years. However, the concept is plagued by a huge talk–action discrepancy: its public discourse has reached a problematic state of dazzling self-adulation, while it is unclear if and how the actual policies and associated organizations live up to these expectations. The article reconstructs three structural causes to explain the recent hype about science diplomacy. It further encourages actors to organize evaluations that ask whether and how actions of science diplomacy can be valuable. In this regard, a first set of fundamental principles is proposed for setting up an evaluative framework. In conclusion, the article advises science diplomacy actors from democratic states and institutions, from both academic research and public policy, to stop dreaming about soft power influence on authoritarian states and regimes but rather face new geopolitical realities.

Summary
For almost twenty years, the concept of science diplomacy has gained momentum in a public discourse that brings together science policy and international affairs. While some policy actions were newly established and others got into the stride of science diplomacy, the public discourse kept proliferating and has greatly enlarged the concept's meaning. Reviewing one of its most common definitions, this contribution critically reflects on the sensational promises made by advocates and endorsers of science diplomacy. Their framing bears on a popular and romantic image of science that would hold salutary capacities to solve problems no matter how complex and that goes into rhapsodies about scientists as cosmopolitans who would eagerly collaborate with kindred spirits regardless of national and cultural contexts. Apart from the fact that science tends to get instrumentalised for particularistic purposes, these reveries are problematic, as they overbook expectations about science and foreign politics that can hardly be fulfilled.

Over the last decades, procedures of compiling, measuring and evaluating academic performance have made incursions into the realm of universities. The result is an effect on employment negotiations, increased competitive performance measurement in funding allocation and, in the context of salary distribution, impact on how individual and collective achievements of academic staff are compared among each other or between different research institutions. Despite the pervasiveness of this type of systematic performance measurement impinging upon nearly all university activities, we still know little about whether these systems matter for researchers under evaluation. Based on empirical insights from an evaluation at a large German university, we discuss perceptions of professors exposed to one university performance measurement system. That exposure seems to trigger, in particular, worrisome attitudes of ambivalence towards the university and the academic value system. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) is an international research centre located in Jordan. The centre was established in the late 1990s with the intention to foster scientific cooperation in a region of the world that has been torn by persistent conflicts. The project is built on the idea that science can help to overcome barriers and cultural differences within the common ground of science and research. SESAME's core ambition is to operate an international state-of-the-art synchrotron users' facility in the north of Amman that is accessible to scientists from all of its members: Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Palestine, Turkey and Jordan. Accordingly, SESAME has been often praised as a paramount example of science diplomacy. Our intention for this report was to investigate a concrete international research infrastructure with a specific science diplomacy interest. What were the enabling conditions for such a project to come into being and what keeps SESAME running? What were the challenges and obstacles? How does the composition of member states play into that? How is SESAME related to (and embedded in) the global synchrotron community, academia, researchers and political actors in the region and the world? Did the science diplomacy ambition behind the project turn out to be successful and how does it affect SESAME's future?

SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) is an international research centre located in Jordan. The centre was established in the late 1990s with the intention to foster scientific cooperation in a region of the world that has been torn by persistent conflicts. The project is built on the idea that science can help to overcome barriers and cultural differences within the common ground of science and research. SESAME's core ambition is to operate an international state-of-the-art synchrotron users' facility in the north of Amman that is accessible to scientists from all of its member countries: Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Palestine, Turkey and Jordan. Accordingly, SESAME has been often praised as a paramount example of science diplomacy. Our intention for this report was to investigate a concrete international research infrastructure with a specific science diplomacy interest. What were the enabling conditions for such a project to come into being and what keeps SESAME running? What were the challenges and obstacles? How does the composition of member states play into that? How is SESAME related to (and embedded in) the global synchrotron community, academia, researchers and political actors in the region and the world? Did the science diplomacy ambition behind the project turn out to be successful and how does it affect SESAME's future?

Science Diplomacy in the Making: Case-based insights from the S4D4C project is a volume of compiled results of the nine case studies, researched and developed by mixed teams of researchers from the project partners, and edited by Mitchell Young (Charles University), Tim Flink (DZHW) and Elke Dall (ZSI). These case studies are at the empirical heart of the S4D4C project (Horizon 2020 grant agreement No 770342; Using Science for/in Diplomacy for Addressing Global Challenges), informing many other parts of the project such as the work on a governance framework and training materials for science diplomats. Each case study provides an overview of the case and its background, context and governance arrangements, further providing a description of the stakeholder landscape and a discussion of governance practices. They look at the EU level as well as selected examples from the national level that vary case to case. The case studies examine the use of knowledge, the relations between governance levels and provide a discussion on how the case improves or changes our understanding of science diplomacy. ; Project website: https://www.s4d4c.eu/science-diplomacy-in-the-making-case-based-insights-from-the-s4d4c-project

In this deliverable of the project S4D4C (Horizon 2020 grant agreement No 770342; Using Science for/in Diplomacy for Addressing Global Challenges), we present the results of a baseline analysis of the needs of the professionals working at the interface of science and foreign policy. We combine qualitative and quantitative data from desk research, interviews, participant observation and, most importantly, an open, anonymous online survey. The 130 answers to the survey constitute a novel source of primary data in the science diplomacy research arena. The results help us better understand the population of science diplomacy practitioners, their goals, practices, challenges and needs as well as their views on the label 'science diplomacy'. The analysis will inform S4D4C's work on training and knowledge resources. In allowing for more targeted governance, the results are also relevant for science diplomacy-related policy-making in the EU and beyond. ; see https://www.s4d4c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/S4D4C_WP2_D2.3_ZSI.pdf

"Wann immer sich die Wissenschafts- und Forschungspolitik dem Vorwurf ausgesetzt sieht, öffentlich finanzierte Forschung trage nicht ausreichend zum gesellschaftlichen Nutzen bei, bemühen sich Entscheidungsträger um diskursive Strategien. Spin-offs stellen als Nachweis der Nützlichkeit von Forschungspolitik eine solche Strategie dar. Ihre Realisierung gelingt jedoch nur selten, da sich die Referenzsysteme von Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft diametral voneinander unterscheiden, unternehmerische Aktivitäten vom Wissenschaftssystem nicht honoriert werden und Übergänge zwischen beiden Systemen schwer zu organisieren sind." (Autorenreferat, IAB-Doku)

Geldnot und politische Vorgaben bringen deutsche Universitäten zur Schärfung ihres Profils. Hemmend wirken die Fixierung auf die Forschung und die begrenzte Macht der Universitätsleitungen. Profilschärfendes Potenzial läge in Feldern wie Internationalisierung, Wissenstransfer und natürlich der Lehre.