Science Diplomacy as Important Opportunity for Development of International Scientific Cooperation and Strategic Relations

In today's world, many problems, such as the deadly pandemics that science seeks to solve, are borderless in nature, and overcoming such challenges goes through the international scientific cooperation between scientists and policymakers working across geopolitical boundaries. Over the past few decades, in parallel with traditional diplomacy, a new type of diplomacy has emerged in the field of international relations called science diplomacy (SD), which has important features such as diversity, pervasive multilateralism, involving citizens and civil society, and high impact. In fact, scientific diplomacy is used to describe many types of exchanges in the fields of science, technology and innovation (STI), and participation of countries in the higher educational (HE) programs. Despite the high diversity of the field, it is divided into three main categories, including science in diplomacy, diplomacy for science, and science for diplomacy. Over the past few decades, countries that have been at the forefront of key science and technology have also benefited greatly from the potential of science diplomacy. Past experiences also show that the development of strategic scientific relations and scientific cooperation between countries or even rival blocs can prevent diplomatic failures and reduce the possibility of destructive conflicts and tensions in the global arena. On the other hand, at the present time, the world faces many and varied challenges, in some cases, solving them is beyond the scientific and technical capacities of a country alone. This article discusses the importance, examples, achievements, opportunities/challenges and experiences of some countries and a number of international institutions in the field of science diplomacy and scientific authority.