UNESCO in the Spotlight: Science and Communications: science

Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Suggestions Relevant to the Status of Scientists.

UNESCO has called for advice and comments regarding the revision of the UNESCO Recommendation on the Status of Scientific Researchers. The original recommendations date from 1974.

I began to work in international science and technology in 1978, when I transferred to the Office of Science and Technology of USAID -- the U.S foreign assistance agency. I continued to be involved in international science and technology until I retired a few years ago. I met with all of the senior science and technology policy officials in Indonesia in 1978. I was involved in the planning for the UN Conference on Science and Technology for Development in 1979. I worked on major studies of science and technology in Egypt, Ecuador and a less detailed study in Uganda. I was involved in the planning and/or evaluation of major science and technology loans in Egypt, Brazil, Mexico and Uganda. I managed research programs in developing countries from 1981 to 1996. I was at one point the Deputy Director of the Office of Science and Technology of USAID, and I directed the USAID Office of Research. I was on the OAS Committee on Science and Technology and I was the U.S. Commissioner on the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development. I served as a member of the Board of Directors of Americans for UNESCO for seven years, and have managed Linked In's group "UNESCO's Friends" for six years.

I was therefore surprised that I had never heard of this UNESCO Recommendation. When I read it, I could see why. It is not only turgid in style but it deals with all sorts of things other than "the status of scientific researchers". I don't think that the relevant scientific leadership in UNESCO's member states know of the existence of this recommendation, nor that they would know what to do to implement it if they were made aware of it.

As a first suggestion, I would focus the recommendations on the status of "scientists", not just "scientific researchers".

Status (from the Merriam Webster dictionary): noun

a: position or rank in relation to others status of a father; b: relative rank in a hierarchy of prestige; especially: high prestige

the condition of a person or thing in the eyes of the law

state or condition with respect to circumstances

Many scientific activities will be carried out by teams of people, and in general on would expect those teams to be headed by professional scientists -- those with the education, training and experience to fully understand the nature of scientific challenges, methods and work.

A scientist might have legal status in her role as professor or researcher, but probably not in her more general role of "scientist". Thus she might enjoy a legal right to tenure and academic freedom as a professor and have legal responsibilities for the ethical conduct of research as a researcher.

So what is the state or condition of the scientist with respect to circumstances? In some circumstances a scientist serves as:

a point of contact with an international scientific community: Thus a scientist should by her training have mastered certain knowledge and skills specific to her science; she should acquire new knowledge and understanding as it is generated by others in her scientific field; she may collaborate on research with other scientists within and outside her country; she may bring relevant scientific issues opportunities specific to her country to the attention of her scientific colleagues abroad; she will be expected to participate in peer review activities.
an educator: Thus, a scientists should help prepare others to be scientists; she may create curricula and teach in institutions of higher learning; she may help assure the quality of the science curricula in K-12 schooling; she may take a role in continuing education in the sciences and in the popularization of scientific knowledge.
a researcher: We think of the defining character of science as the conduct of scientific research, but not all scientists always are in the process of conducting their own research. Still, she may conduct independent research, or collaborate in the conduct of research with others; she may seek to replicate reported research; she should submit her research for publication in appropriate scientific journals.
an organizer of knowledge: Scientists often write text books or other books on their science, organizing bodies of knowledge so that they may be effectively conveyed to others.
a problem solver: Scientists are sometimes called upon to apply their scientific knowledge to real world problems. Thus a meteorologist may be asked to apply her scientific knowledge to the development of weather forecasting technology; a geologist to apply her scientific knowledge to the location or description of valuable mineral deposits; a plant scientist to the identification of a crop disease.

What then is the appropriate role for UNESCO in making recommendations on the status of scientists. I suspect that there are few such recommendations. Perhaps the recommendations should focus on governmental and educational institutions, as these are more likely to attend to UNESCO's suggestions.

I suppose that there are some legal implications of these aspects of a scientists status. Thus a scientist might need to have greater access to the Internet and to the importation of foreign literature than would be granted to the general public in some countries. So too, academic scientists (at least in some fields) might perhaps appropriately be granted more time for public service than would faculty in say the humanities.

Scientific ethics require scientists working for government to share their scientific findings with the public, and governments should recognize this fact. While politicians and bureaucrats may regularly have limitations placed on their public statements by their governments, here is special status may well be appropriate for scientists.

I would guess that UNESCO's focus should be on helping small, poor countries to use their relatively few scientists well. In part that means encouraging institutions to emphasize critically important scientific fields in their policies.

The portion of GDP that countries spend on research and development increases with the per capita GDP. Small, poor countries thus spend very little on R&D. If they are to meet their needs for research results relevant to their problems, then they probably must depend on their scientists collaborating with those from other countries on such problems. Thus these countries might focus on special recognition of visiting foreign scientists working on collaborative research.
Teaching science is important, but if there are few scientists they should be used efficiently in as teachers. Providing them with assistance in the form of teaching assistants and readers (who grade papers) may help. While such assistants may not be common in all fields in higher education, they may be appropriate in the sciences.
In small, poor countries, a fairly large portion of scientists may be employed in government agricultural, medical, forestry, fisheries or industrial research institutes. Others may be employed by the government as geologists, hydrologists, meteorologists, and other scientific professions. Again, to maximize the utilization of scientific expertise, such scientists should be provided with assistants to carry out duties that don't require professional scientific knowledge and skill; the scientists should be encouraged to teach and conduct research even if that means adjusting the hours of their government employment.

In general, I would suggest UNESCO deviate from its usual policy to produce a short, easily read and understood set of recommendations. If they are to be useful, they might be targeted to a subset of UNESCO member states, and efforts made to provide them to the relevant science policy makers in the governments of those states utilizing UNESCO's country regional missions as well as national commissions.

Friday, July 19, 2013

A World of science Vol 11 n° 3

Click here to go to the issue.

Click here to go to the World of Science website.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Sixty Years of Science at UNESCO 1945-2005 http://j.mp/13BdiD1

This book is now available in PDF format online, free.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

U.S. Government Scientist Wins UNESCO Prize

Professor Deborah JIN is a 2013 laureate of the L’ORÉAL-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science. Professor Deborah Jin and her team invented an ingenious method of cooling molecules down to near absolute zero, the lowest possible temperature – which has the effect of slowing them down. In fact, they slow down enough for researchers to actually see what goes on during chemical reactions. The study of ultra-cold molecules could lead to new precision-measurement tools, new methods for quantum computing and help us better understand materials that are essential to technology.

Read more:

Sunday, March 17, 2013

UNESCO and the science of mind,

I have been involved in a discussion on the UNESCO's Friends group on Linked In of the biology of mind and the need for an international venue for discussion of the policy implications of the emerging science and its technological repercussions.

Scientists have been illuminating the incredible plasticity of the brain. That plasticity is not that the different organs within the skull migrate physically. Scientists now know that the number of neurons in the brain peaks during early childhood and then some die not to be replaced; they also have shown that there remain stem cells in the brain and new neurons are created long into adult life. Still it is believed that most of the changes are in the connections among neurons and the ability of neurons to excite or inhibit the actions of other neurons.

The biology of mind seems to be an emerging discipline. Imaging techniques, electrical recording techniques and molecular biology are combining to produce rates of scientific knowledge production in this area that were hardly imaginable a couple of decades ago. It seems likely that the burgeoning of knowledge will lead to important applications. This turning point might turn out to be similar to semiconductor physics leading to semiconductor electronics or atomic physics leading to nuclear energy.

We now know the Flynn Effect, that average performance on IQ tests is improving:

The average rate of increase seems to be about three IQ points per decade in the U.S. on tests such as the WISC. The increasing raw scores appear on every major test, in every age range and in every modern industrialized country although not necessarily at the same rate as in the U.S. using the WISC. The increase has been continuous and roughly linear from the earliest days of testing to the present.

This may be because people are increasingly learning things measured by IQ tests instead of other unmeasured things that they learned in the past, or perhaps because people are on average actually becoming more intelligent. (Perhaps a smaller part of the population are subject to poor nutrition and childhood diseases that limit the development of the brain, or are subject to poor intellectual environment and inadequate schooling that would limit their learning opportunities.) Whatever the explanation, since IQ test performance is clearly a function of the behavior of the brain, on average, the brain of today (in industrialized countries) is different than was, on average, the brain of yesteryear.

I see no reason to believe that brains will not continue on the average to change. I would suggest that our objectives in schooling and in lifelong learning would be to encourage brain development, on average, in beneficial directions. Schooling has tended to focus on facts and analysis. Perhaps it should focus more on other aspects of learning. For example, perhaps it should seek to assure that learning excites the pleasure centers of the brain.

Homo sapiens are social animals, and there is evidence that we make better decisions in groups than as individuals. Perhaps we need to consider the biology of the group mind. Perhaps schooling should include specific efforts to help people learn better how to think together, to solve problems in groups.

It has also been suggested that we think with our surround. In my father's day (born in 1905 in Ireland) it made sense for schools to promote the development of memory; in my youth (born 1937) we were taught library skills but had less memory training; today's infants will be brought up with hand-held devices connected to the Internet and will be taught to find and evaluate information from cyberspace. So too, modern schooling should help people learn to use the analytic capabilities of computers to amplify their own analysis.

My point is that the improving science of the biology of the mind should be reflected in changes in educational policy. This would seem to be an area of special concern for UNESCO with its emphasis on both education and science. UNESCO also has for decades focused on the ethics of science and technology and bioethics, and there are clearly ethical issues in educational policy raised by the emerging science of the biology of mind.

However, that is but one area of policy that should reflect our emerging knowledge of mind. Clearly psychiatric policy will change as we better understand the brain, and as we develop better technology for diagnosis and treatment of brain dysfunctions; given the relation of "physical" and "mental" health, better science of the mind might also lead to more general changes in medical policy.

Legal policy may well change as we learn more about the brain and the biological bases of decisions and behavior. That seems obviously true for criminal justice, but it may also be true in areas such as legislation regarding marriage/

Information is accumulating as to the interplay between culture and the biology of mind. We know that the language we learn as children influences the allocation of space in the brain to different mental functions. We also know that culture is plastic -- that the cultures of today's nations have changed from the cultures of their predecessors. Not only are Western cultures different today than they were a century ago, but so too are "indigenous" cultures in Asia, Africa and the Americas. Perhaps we might induce positive changes in culture for our descendants through examination of the increasing knowledge of the biology of mind -- perhaps promoting cultures of peace and improved understanding among cultures. Again, UNESCO focuses on culture, science and ethics, so the ethical dimensions of the impact of the biology of mind on cultural change seems a natural area for UNESCO's concern.

UNESCO has served as a forum for discussion, a laboratory and a clearinghouse for ideas. Those are just the functions most immediately needed with respect to the science of mind!

Friday, January 18, 2013

IOC/UNESCO: Addressing Nutrient Over-Enrichment

I recently had the pleasure of spending the New Year in the Pacific Northwest. During my time there, I traveled along the Pacific coast just south of the Canadian border. In a region renowned for natural beauty, the rocky shores didn’t disappoint. Mile after mile of conifers edged waters that looked cold, calm, and clear.

It’s hard to imagine that waters like these could be anything but healthy. But marine ecologist Dr. Joan Kleypas of the National Center for Atmospheric Research notes that changing CO² levels are already impacting the shellfish industry in the Pacific Northwest. “This is not a problem in the far distant future,” Kleypas warns. “This is a problem now.”

In addition to rising CO² levels, marine environments at large have seen substantial increases in nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen. This uptick in nutrients can be traced in part to human activities such as food production, fossil fuel burning, and wastewater generation from people and industries alike. In coastal waters, skyrocketing levels of nutrients are leading to ecosystem responses like eutrophication – think dense blooms of phytoplankton – and the ensuing chaos of depleted oxygen levels, i.e., hypoxia. These changes in the tiny and unseen end in visible damage; the resulting low-oxygen “dead zones” cannot support most marine life. Five hundred of these hypoxic dead zones have been identified globally already. Although the world’s oceans are vast, the collective dead zones already cover a total global surface area roughly the size of the United Kingdom. From sea-grasses to fish, marine ecosystems lose their overall resilience, and human activities that rely on coastal and marine health – fishing, tourism, etc. – suffer as well.

In order to protect coastal areas, scientific partners have been working to address the root causes of this nutrient over-enrichment. Earlier this month, an examination of nutrient/ecosystem dynamics was published in Biogeosciences, an interactive open-access journal of the European Geosciences Union. The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC/UNESCO) was an executing partner for this project, coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The paper may be found here.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Two New Publications from the UIS

Source: "A Snapshot of R&D Expenditure", UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Source: "Regional density of researchers and their field of employment". UNESCO Institute for Statistics

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics is perhaps the lead organization in the United Nations system for statistics on education, science and culture. Its most important impact may have been helping UNESCO to improve data collection by governments around the world in these fields. As a result of UNESCO's work, these data provide a more accurate comparison of what is happening among countries.

UIS has produced two new fact sheets on science:

Friday, January 11, 2013

A World of Science shines spotlight on water politics

In the latest issue of A World of Science, a group of experts on water politics provide an overview of the issues likely to dominate the International Year of Water Cooperation beginning in January, of which UNESCO is lead UN agency. The authors explain that arid climates are no more conflict-prone than humid ones, and that conflicts over water erupt in equal measure in rich and poor countries, democracies and autocracies, fortunately on rare occasions: over the past 70 years, incidences of cooperation have actually outnumbered conflicts by two to one.

A second story highlights some of the marvels of human ingenuity inscribed in the Memory of the World Register, to.mark the 20^th anniversary of UNESCO’s eponymous program.

We learn from a third article that, in less than 50 years, countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea have nearly tripled their demand for natural resources. Today, all 24 countries are ecological debtors. These findings were revealed on 1 October by Global Footprint Network, at a regional meeting in Venice (Italy) organized jointly with UNESCO. UNESCO’s Venice office plans to encourage Southeast European countries to introduce the ecological footprint concept into school curricula, in order to help prepare pupils for their future role as responsible, active citizens.

On 30 November, synthetic biology was one of the themes discussed at a forum organized jointly by UNESCO’s Social and Human Sciences Sector and the French NGO Vivagora at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Synthetic biologists, who borrow techniques from engineering to create entirely new life forms, are currently operating in a regulatory vacuum. In an interview, Eric Hoffman from the NGO Friends of the Earth confirms that products containing synthetic organisms are already on the market. He also highlights the risk of some engineered life forms – including viruses – ‘escaping’ from the lab to contaminate other species.

Among the news stories, the developed countries have agreed to double funding for biodiversity protection and Australia has just created the world’s largest marine protected area. Meanwhile, Nigeria is establishing an international biotech institute that will function under the auspices of UNESCO and Teri University in India is to host a UNESCO chair on climate science and policy.

Read the issue (English only): http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002191/219156E.pdf

Home page and free subscription: www.unesco.org/en/a-world-of-science

Correspondence : s.schneegans@unesco.org

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

A World of science Vol 10 n°3

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so too is utility. As Iain Stewart from Plymouth University

(UK) observed last February at the 40th anniversary of the International Geoscience Programme

(IGCP) at UNESCO in Paris, show a piece of coal to an industrialist and they will see a source of

fuel; show it to an ecologist and they will see a source of carbon emissions; show it to a geologist

and they will see a climate which existed more than 300 million years ago (Ma).

Geoscientists help us to travel through time. The IGCP was founded in 1972 to confirm the

existence of Gondwana, one of two megacontinents with Laurasia which formed about 145 Ma,

by correlating the geology of modern continents. As time went by and supporting evidence for

Gondwana became overwhelming, IGCP research teams turned to questions of special societal

relevance. New disciplines emerged like archaeoseismology, which draws on both the geological

and archaeological record to identify past earthquakes. One IGCP project in 2000 was even at

the origin of a new field: medical geology, the science dealing with the impact of our natural

environment on human and animal health. Arsenic, for example, is a natural chemical which poisons

millions of people worldwide who absorb it unwittingly through groundwater.

Given the concern over climate change and the looming shortage of fossil fuels and uranium

which overshadows our industrial future, geoscientists are focusing more on renewable energy these

days. Kenyan geoscientists, for instance, are currently employed on a government project to develop

geothermal energy in the Great Rift Valley.

Sunday, July 08, 2012

UNESCO: Building Equitable, Inclusive Green Societies

“Achieving genuine sustainable development calls for more than green investment and low carbon technologies. Besides its economic and ecological dimensions, the social and human dimensions are central factors for success. Ultimately, we must focus our efforts on building green societies.”
Irina Bokova, Director-General, UNESCO.

Click here for more on UNESCO's support for sustainable development and Rio + 20, The Earth Summit.

Friday, April 06, 2012

Quoted from UNESCO D.G. Bokova's Speech on STI in Aftica

UNESCO is already working with over twenty African countries to review existing STI policies and formulate national frameworks.

We are helping Nigeria and Tanzania to reform their national science systems.

We are strengthening the capacity of researchers, policymakers, development partners and the private sector.

We have done so with seven countries of the Economic Community of West Africa States, and with Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.

Effective policies need sharp and precise data.

This is the unique roles of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the global UNESCO Science Reports.

We launched recently the Science, Technology and Innovation Global Assessment Programme and the Global Observatory on Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Instruments to take this further.

UNESCO’s new Engineering Initiative to support engineering education has a focus on Africa.

UNESCO is also actively promoting links between science, technology, innovation and industry -- through our University-Industry Science Partnership Programme, on the governance of science and technology parks.

We are working also to help young scientists take part in research and development in biodiversity.

The World Association of Young Scientists, created by UNESCO in 2004, is active across the continent -- as is the network of UNESCO University Chairs. There is still a lot of work to do here.

These include UNESCO Chairs for Women in Science in Kenya, Sudan and Burkina Faso.

Women are a special focus of our work.

Just last week, I was honoured to award the L’ORÉAL-UNESCO Prizes for Women in Science to five outstanding researchers, including Professor Jill Farrant from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

This year, as part of the L’OREAL-UNESCO For Women in Science Partnership, a young woman scientist from Kenya, Peggoty Mutai, benefitted from the UNESCOL’Oreal International Fellowships programme.

Last May, I launched a new Global Partnership for Girls’ and Women’s Education, in the presence of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the United States Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Read the entire Address by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of the opening of the Ministerial Conference African Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) for Youth Employment, Human Capital Development and Inclusive Growth

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Africa on the Move

Interview of Lidia Brito, Director of Science Policy and Capacity Building, UNESCO

Science, technology and innovation (STI) are important issues for Africa, an increasingly dynamic continent. On the occasion of the First African Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) for Youth Employment, Human Capital Development and Inclusive Growth, from 1 to 3 April in Nairobi, Kenya, Lidia Brito talks about the importance of STI in the African context and how it will contribute to sustainable development in Africa in the run up to the Rio + 20 conference in June 2012.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

L’ORÉAL-UNESCO Award for Women in Science - 2012

Professor Bonnie BASSLER has won the North American Award
Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, USA
For understanding the chemical communication between bacteria and opening new doors for treating infections.

Bonnie Bassler has devoted herself to studying the revolutionary notion that bacteria are not simply individual organisms working on their own for better (helping us digest food, for example) or for worse (causing disease). In fact, as she discovered, they are ineffective on their own and must work as coordinated ‘armies’ to be able to be successful at both keeping us healthy and making us sick. It would be impossible for groups of bacteria to act in unison, however, if they did not communicate with each other. Bassler has shown that bacteria ‘talk’ using chemicals as their words. These startling discoveries may someday lead to the development of new antibiotics that interfere with bacterial conversations as well as many other applications, such as infection-resistant surgical implants.

Congratulations to Professor Bassler!

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

UCSB grad student Alejandra Jaramillo wins UNESCO-L'Oréal Fellowship

Jaramillo, who is from Panama, is able to fund some of her important Ph.D. research as a result of being awarded a prestigious fellowship with the UNESCO-L'Oréal Fellowships for Young Women in Life Sciences for 2011.

Every country can nominate as many as four top young women scientists for these awards, according to the organizers. The selection process includes over 1,000 women each year.

Each Fellow must be based at a host institution outside her native country. There have been 165 fellowships awarded since 2000. The winners receive $40,000 over two years. They are required to attend a six-day awards ceremony in Paris, which Jaramillo attended last spring.

“It was a great honor to receive this award,” said Jaramillo. “I was very excited and proud to be the first Panamanian scientist to receive it. I was also very excited because it allowed me to fund some of my Ph.D. research.”

Friday, December 02, 2011

Forum adopted declaration on new era of global science

For the first time, the World Science Forum has adopted a declaration. Acknowledging that the landscape of science is changing rapidly, the declaration adopted by participants on 19 November contains five recommendations. Participants call for

the responsible and ethical conduct of research and innovation,
an improved dialogue with society on scientific issues,
the promotion of international collaboration in science,
collaborative policies to overcome knowledge divides in the world and, lastly,
a reinforcement of capacity-building for science.

The declaration echoes some of the key trends identified by the UNESCO Science Report 2010. It states, for example, that ‘the former triadic dominance of North America, Europe and Japan in global knowledge production has been seriously challenged and a new multipolar world of science has emerged, accompanied by the rise of new scientific powerhouses, which are now not only prominent actors in the world economy but have become key players in cutting-edge research and development activities. In this new context of global science, science diplomacy is now an acknowledged tool to promote partnership among nations by fostering scientific co-operation.

The declaration calls for a renewed engagement of all stakeholders to ensure that full use is made of the opportunities science may offer for development and prosperity. ‘It is the responsibility of those who promote science and scientists to maintain the primacy of moral and social concerns over short-term economic interest in the selection and implementation of industrialised research projects’, it states.

Read more....

Sunday, November 06, 2011

World Science Day for Peace and Development

Established by UNESCO in 2001, the WSDPD is celebrated on 10 November each year. The Day is an occasion to recall UNESCO's mandate for and commitment to science.

The WSDPD's objectives are:

To strengthen public awareness on the role of science for peaceful and sustainable societies
To promote national and international solidarity for a shared science between countries
To renew national and international commitment for the use of science for the benefit of societies
To draw attention to the challenges faced by science and raise support for the scientific endeavor

Friday, November 04, 2011

Meeting on STI Policy Instruments

Fifty distinguished experts in science, technology and innovation from across the globe met at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris from 19 to 20 October to discuss science policy in their respective countries. A technical workshop “Towards a Global Observatory of Policy Instruments on Science, Technology and Innovation” aimed to expand UNESCO’s Science Policy Information Network (SPIN) from a regional to a global level.

During the seminar decision-makers from government, academia and multinational enterprises were to examine a range of policy instruments, as well as legal frameworks meant to improve methods for gathering, classifying and standardizing information around the world.

The Science Policy Information Network (SPIN) program was launched in Montevideo (Uruguay) in 2010 by UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Science. The innovative SPIN information platform equips decision-makers and specialists in science and technology policy with powerful graphical and analytical tools, maps, and statistics.

Sunday, October 02, 2011

Unesco Director Asks Dictator to Withdraw Science Prize

The director of Unesco called Friday for a West African dictator to withdraw the controversial prize he has endowed for the organization. The prize in the life sciences, financed by and named for President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, would damage the “prestige” and “credibility” of Unesco, its director general, Irina Bokova, said at a meeting of the group’s executive board in Paris.

Read more about the situation from"

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Distinguished American Scientists at UNESCO Meet

On 15 and 16 September 2011, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova hosted the first meeting of UNESCO’s High Panel on Science and Development at UNESCO Headquarters. The meeting brings together personalities who make up the Panel, including two distinguished American scientists:

Dr. Susan Avery, the President and Director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Dr. Ahmed Hassan Zewail, the Nobel Laureate chemist -- and Egyptian American -- who holds the Linus Pauling Chair in Chemistry and Physics at the California Institute of Technology.

UNESCO has a long history focussing on capacity-building in the natural and social sciences, particularly in the developing world, and on mobilizing international communities to collaborate around scientific challenges that cannot be addressed by any one nation alone. UNESCO's broader goals include the use of science for poverty reduction, for sustainable development and for building a culture of peace.

UNESCO needs to lead an in-depth reflection on how the international community can cooperate more effectively to address these issues.

This is a priority for UNESCO’s Member States, who have requested the Director-General to propose new strategies and initiatives that can strengthen our efforts in science, technology and innovation. This High-Level Panel is a response to their expectation.

The panel is to provide UNESCO with guidelines for the development of working strategies to promote sustainable development and advance the fight for the eradication of poverty. The High Panel will meet twice a year with the objective of identifying current challenges in the social and natural sciences so as to help UNESCO fine-tune its actions. New partnerships with the private sector, civil society and academia are also to be examined.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Meeting of High Panel on Science for Development

Renowned scientists, decision-makers and intellectuals from all over the world make up UNESCO’s High Panel on Science for Development, which will hold its first meeting at the Organization’s Headquarters on 15 and 16 September. Its role is to identify current challenges in the social and natural sciences so as to help UNESCO fine-tune its response.

The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, will open the meeting of the High Panel whose members include Indira Samarasekera, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Alberta (Canada), José Sarukhán Kermez, National Coordinator of Mexico’s National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO); Ahmadou Lamine N’Diaye, President of the African Academy of Science; Gong Ke, President of the University of Nankai (China); and Partha Dasgupta, Professor of Economics, Cambridge University (UK).

During the first day of the meeting, the experts will discuss trends in the sciences and the role of UNESCO in the present environment. On the following morning, the Permanent Delegations of UNESCO’s Member States will meet the members of the High Panel during two sessions entitled: “Mobilizing international science to address pressing interdisciplinary challenges facing our societies,” and “Models for capacity building in science, technology and innovation.”. This session, moderated par Jose Mariano Gago, former Minister of Science (Portugal), will be open to the public.

The High Panel will meet twice a year. Its members include 28 personalities who have achieved eminence in their field of expertise. The 15 and 16 September meeting at UNESCO will bring together 17 of these experts. In a world of science that is in constant flux, they will provide UNESCO with guidelines for the development of working strategies to promote sustainable development and advance the fight for the eradication of poverty. New partnerships with the private sector, civil society and academe are also to be examined.