Creating Global Commons for Science, Technology, and Innovation
Creating Global Commons for Science, Technology, and Innovation
Collectively solving problems shared by many nations requires a new global science and technology commons.
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Collectively solving problems shared by many nations requires a new global science and technology commons.
A year ago, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine redefined geopolitics in a shockwave that is still reverberating through the science world. The EU research community was quick to cut ties with Russia and lend Ukraine a helping hand - but now it is grappling with resulting instability and uncertainty as the war climbs into its second year.
A new global organisation is trying to prevent dramatic advances in bioscience from unleashing engineered pathogens from the lab, and wants research funders, scientists and journals to help. The International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS) warns that scientists might be able to order the DNA of dangerous pathogens like smallpox from unregulated companies, and wants much tighter screening of the industry.
Effective Altruism (EA), a movement of rationalist do-gooders that has been growing in size and influence for just over a decade, hit the headlines worldwide in 2022 - although not quite as its supporters hoped.
The path to peace usually leads through a ceasefire. In an international project, ETH Zurich researchers have shown the conditions under which parties to civil wars are willing to stop fighting – and why they decide to do so.
António Guterres is heading to Cop27 for what is likely to be another blistering attack on complacency and foot-dragging.
If intelligence analysis is to improve, we must learn from our new understanding of cognitive bias.
Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti is the fifth European to take command of the ISS. She says the space station gives her hope for peace on Earth.
European Research Council president tells UN General Assembly science alone is not guaranteed to save the world from the climate disaster and the other crises it faces.
The lifting of pandemic restrictions on travel and increased requirements in EU research programmes for researchers to spend time abroad is drawing renewed attention to the way in which blanket EU rules for managing labour flows are getting in the way.
Thailand and the EU last week signed off a new scheme allowing researchers from Thailand to join European Research Council-funded projects. ERC already has a number of such arrangements with countries including Australia, Brazil, China, India and the US, but this is the first time it has cooperated with Thailand's National Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation Policy Council.
Climate change affects us all yet not equally. The plight of those forced to migrate as a result - often called 'climate refugees', though not officially - has become contested ground between human rights/environmental activists and anti-asylum lobbyists. Could 'ecologically displaced', avoiding racialization, xenophobia and division, be a viable alternative?
The UK government's plan to increase R&D spending requires a skilled workforce which its universities and research institutes will struggle to assemble, expert witnesses told the House of Lords' science and technology committee today. "The attractiveness of the UK as a destination for scientists might have decreased in recent years," said Maggie Dallman, vice president for international affairs and associate provost for academic partnerships at Imperial College London.
UC Berkeley scientists and students looked at current artificial intelligence translation systems and found that, though flawed, they have become good enough for researchers to broadly translate their work into other languages, at least the languages of the coauthors and the country in which the research was conducted. One problem: how to get permissions to translate and share, and where will these translations live online.
After Russia's invasion, politicians promised to boost military research funding - but policy specialists aren't convinced that a rapid change lies ahead.
Calorie availability and extent of food shortages for each nation are estimated following regional or global nuclear war, including impacts on major crops, livestock and fishery production.
In recent years, the world's leading industrialised nations have been moving to defend their science and technology from perceived threats from China, Russia and elsewhere. Now, they're trying to counter another risk: that their security measures could harm their own science.
New framework aims to improve inclusion and ethics in global research collaborations amid wider efforts to end exploitative practices.
This article studies international citation and text similarity networks across 150 fields and find that some countries increasingly receive more citations despite researching similar topics as others.
Firm launches 'healthier world' accord in Davos and speaks to other drugmakers about similar steps
The UK has followed much of the rest of Europe and announced its own scientific sanctions against Russia, leaving the US, which has still not issued any centralised guidance, increasingly isolated in its inaction. After reviewing its Russian links, the UK has said its research and innovation funding organisations will not start any new projects with Russia. Payments to existing projects "with a Russian dimension" have been paused pending an assessment of which ones "benefit the Russian regime."
As the world cuts Russia off from more and more joint research and innovation projects following its invasion of Ukraine, there's been deafening silence from the ITER megaproject that is seeking to demonstrate the potential of nuclear fusion by building the world's largest tokamak in south west France.
Russia says Ukraine and its allies are planning a "dirty" weapons attack. The US says that's false. But what are these weapons and who has them?
Mark Vande Hei, who is set to break the US single spaceflight record, will be riding a Russian capsule back to EarthRussia-Ukraine war.
EU research ministers signed a declaration laying out common principles and values for international cooperation in research and innovation in Marseille on Monday, but these rules arrive as the rapid pace of geopolitical change threatens to render them useless in selecting scientific collaborators from outside the EU.
For about 20 years, Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet has maintained a partnership with one of Russia's main cardiology clinics, the Almazov National Medical Research Centre in St. Petersburg. This institutional tie was abruptly suspended on 2 March, as part of Sweden's sanctions for the war in Ukraine.
As extreme weather events become commonplace, threatening communities and economies across the world, the UN is helping policy-makers and leaders by projecting the impact of future climate hazards, and recommending the best, most cost-effective ways to adapt.
The world is failing to tackle the persisting and increasingly serious global crisis of depression it is facing, according to a Lancet and World Psychiatric Association Commission on depression, which calls for a whole-of-society response to reducing the global burden of depression.
Apart from economic, political, and cultural cooperation for an equal growth of all developing countries, science and technology are an integral significant component in these levels of engagement for leveraging mutual gains. The current pandemic not only brought about an 1800 shift in the relationship between the government, policy makers, and the scientific community but highlights the importance of South–South Cooperation (SSC).
COVID-19 presents a opportunity to transform democratic engagement in the governance of global public goods. To make us more resistant and resilient to future global health crises we need transformative thinking to democratically engage global citizens.