Third GRN Workshop Virtual Workshop

Third GRN Workshop

Virtual Workshop: Zoom Meeting

26-27 June 2020

Cooperation in Eurasia: Science and Politics

The third GRN network workshop will be a targeted meeting to summarise and present the findings and recommendations of the project in the field of Science Diplomacy in Eurasia. The first workshop considered the historical framework in Eurasia through the lens of Nomadic Empires and the Silk Road; the Russian Empire; and finally the Soviet Union. In considering these aspects the project’s initial goal of laying a foundation to understand science and diplomatic relations in Eurasia was achieved. The second workshop brought in aspects of the current state of science, technology, and industry in Eurasia with an emphasis on the domestic, regional, and international development policies. The dimension of diplomacy as a facilitator and a product of knowledge exchanges in post-Soviet Eurasia focused specifically on South Korea’s efforts to work with Central Asian and Caucasus countries in transferring technology through science ODAs. Building on these workshops, the third workshop will finalise the direction of final outputs of the consortium. The aim is to present paper summaries and discuss the arguments which will be made in each paper.

Since the age of industrial revolution, optimists and sceptics have debated whether science and technology are the moving force of social development or vice-versa, social conditions shape scientific and technological progress. At the core of this debate is the role or the logic of the market in driving innovation and progress which placed the Western capitalist model of industrialization at a privileged position. As a result, often the purpose and the success of science diplomacy is measured in numbers of technology transfer and the economic benefits it brought, overlooking the capacity in the system accepting the transfer and the choice of which technology to import along with its social and cultural benefits. We believe that Eurasia’s historical experience may suggest an alternative approach to this question by considering the cooperative dimension of science and interaction. Moving away from the idea of a zero-sum game in understanding relations, Eurasia can help inform the ways in which science can guide policy not only in content but in action. The collaborative frameworks that science requires, anything from peer review processes to working on aspects of the same problem in different parts of the world, is considered here. While European colonialism posited a competitive framework, Eurasian history is rife with examples of collaborative actions which are dictated by the geography and ecology of the region. With this in mind we invite papers that address the question of how this experience can translate into and inform the future direction of science diplomacy in Eurasia today and in the rest of the world.

Speakers:

Dr Shin, Hanynag University, South Korea

Dr Saxena, Uni of Cambridge, UK

Dr Moon, Chunbuk National University, South Korea

Dr Dzarassov, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Russia

Dr Muratbekova, . Eurasia Research Institute, Almaty, Kazakhstan 

Dr Morozova, Uni of Regensburg, Germany 

Dr Shadmanova, Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan

P. Kalra, Uni of Cambridge 

R. Schivatcheva, Uni of Cambridge