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France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), in partnership with UNESCO, will host a conference on 26 January to launch the InsSciDE project, which aims to lay the foundations for a European-wide science diplomacy. The initiative is funded by the European Commission for a period of four years.

Coordinated by Pascal Griset, Professor of contemporary history at Paris-Sorbonne University and director of the Institute of Science Communication of the CNRS, InsSciDE will bring together 14 research and training institutes from 11 European countries, as well as UNESCO.

Organized by the CNRS at the French Academy of Medicine in Paris, the conference will be attended by stakeholders and members of the Scientific Advisory Board of InsSciDE including:

• Catherine Bréchignac, Ambassador of France for Sciences and Permanent Secretary of the country’s Académie des Sciences,
• Edgar Morin, philosopher and sociologist, President of the Scientific Advisory Board of France’s Institute of Science and Communication,
• Thierry Courvoisier, President of the European Academies of the Science Advisory Council (EASAC).

The InsSciDE project aims to engage scientists, diplomats, science historians, strategy experts and decision-makers to establish the origins of European scientific diplomacy and develop its conceptual basis.

UNESCO, one of the main partners in the project, plays an important role in science diplomacy. The Organization has fostered major international scientific undertakings which gave birth to, for example, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, the International Hydrological Programme; the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and most recently the Synchrotron Radiation for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME), inaugurated last year in Allan (Jordan).

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For accreditation contact: christophe.potier-thomas@cnrs.fr

UNESCO contact: Casimiro Vizzini, Natural Sciences Sector, c.vizzini@unesco.org