Vaughan Turekian and Peter Gluckman call for Rewiring science diplomacy in an August 21, 2025 Science editorial. They offer a valuable perspective on emerging challenges facing such work, the changes underway, and the new coping strategy needed.
They note that science diplomacy was originally seen as a means to build international trust and multilateralism. Over time this aspiration gave way to a more pragmatic goal: making faster scientific progress or achieving goals that would be otherwise unattainable by a single nation acting alone. They then point out:
Of late, there has been a shift to a transactional model, which takes on a more business-like approach with a focus on dealmaking, and near-term returns for the players within broader national strategy. Science’s value now is seen as not just a tool of cooperation but also as a currency of negotiation. Agreements are contingent, driven by near-term benefit, and increasingly aimed at advancing national interests.
Instead of settling for either-or; they argue for synthesis:
Today, effective science diplomacy requires a new framework—a trimodal model for science diplomacy that is aspirational, pragmatic, and transactional—leveraging the distinct logics and strengths of each approach. Aspirational diplomacy builds empathy and long-term trust. Pragmatic diplomacy reinforces institutions and solves shared problems. Transactional diplomacy delivers immediate, nationally aligned outcomes.
The editorial concludes on this hopeful note:
The growth of transactional science diplomacy need not mean the end of trust-based collaboration or the fragmentation of scientific cooperation. If managed carefully, it can coexist with and even reinforce other forms of diplomacy.
Well said! Turekian and Gluckman leave open (thereby keeping the editorial brief and focused), just what this “careful management” might look like and how it might be achieved in practice. Balancing these competing interests will obviously be different case by case.
How, then, might we pursue the actual implementation? Speaking to us from across 400 years of history, Francis Bacon had some thoughts to keep in mind. He stated,
“Lastly, I would address one general admonition to all — that they consider what are the true ends of knowledge, and that they seek it not either for pleasure of the mind, or for contention, or for superiority to others, or for profit, or fame, or power, or any of these inferior things, but for the benefit and use of life, and that they perfect and govern it in charity. For it was from lust of power that the angels fell, from lust of knowledge that man fell; but of charity there can be no excess, neither did angel or man ever come in danger by it.”
Readers familiar with Living on the Real World know I’m besotted with these words of Bacon’s, revisiting them often. (A listing of ten entrances to this LOTRW rabbit hole can be found here.)
Say we accept Bacon’s advice – to advance science for the benefit of life. and out of a spirit of selfless love (the best modern-day translation of Bacon’s Elizabethan word “charity.”). That’s the aspiration[1]. Then perhaps at each step in science diplomacy scientists and national leaders might ask: in this particular instance, how can a transactional science diplomacy lead to the benefit of life? How could a pragmatic approach contribute?
When it comes to pragmatism and transactional approaches, additional, more recent voices come to mind. Douglas McGregor, the author of the 1960 book The Human Side of Enterprise, saw interpersonal competence in the business world as the ability to solve a (given) problem in such a way that you can solve the next one. Stephen Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People offered a similar notion in Habit Number 4: think win-win[2]. Both authors recognize that as a practical matter that diplomacy should be viewed as a process to be sustained, not as a one-off event. Pragmatists as well as idealists can see obvious advantages to not pursuing transactions with an eye solely to short-term gain, particularly if one-sided.
Social scientists know this. It’s certainly not a news flash to either Vaughan Turekian or Peter Gluckman. Heck. We all know this. Husbands and wives know this; Parents know this, when it comes to raising their kids. It’s the key to any relationship that’s worth having, any relationship that endures.
In the long run, the aspiration – the greater service – is what matters most. I’m not suggesting that in a transactional world it’s necessary or advantageous to flog others with this reality. That wouldn’t be diplomatic! But it is useful for each of us to bear in mind[3].
[1]BTW, we scientists, being only human, struggle with this part, lapsing into some of Bacon’s lesser motivations. Being only human, so did Bacon himself.
[2]This notion also has received repeated attention in LOTRW.
[3]There’s more in LOTRW on science diplomacy as well. Here are some links.