How to prevent a cold war in science

Diplomats and scientists often live in different worlds and don’t have open access to each other’s community.

A new foundation known as the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) hopes to bring the two sides together. It took a first step by holding its first summit in the Swiss city from October 7-9.

Host Imogen Foulkes went to the event and spoke to Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, former Nestlé CEO, and chairman of GESDA, as well as Fabiola Gianotti, Director-General of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

“Perhaps GESDA is an honest broker between science and politics.  If you look at the declaration of world leaders, you will hear that some of them clearly state that they want their country to be the technology leader worldwide. And the next step is that if two countries want to be the world development leaders in technology and science, there’s a certain confrontation,” says Brabeck.

“I think we must really do more and become more collaborative in all fields of society. The challenges are daunting – societal challenges, planetary challenges, technological challenges – so working together is a must. Science and technology should become tools to reduce the inequities across the world,” explains Gianotti.

Here are the episode’s highlights:

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