Honoring the Communities that Produce Knowledge

In “A New Science Diplomacy in Latin America Embeds Knowledge in Public Institutions” (Issues, Spring 2026), Gabriela Gomes Coelho Ferreira and Claudia Alarcón López offer an intriguing reframing of science diplomacy: not as soft power or elite negotiation, but as the patient craft of building legitimacy through institutional architecture. Their emphasis that “simple communication is not enough” is timely. The aspiration to evidence-based policy as a one-way transfer of knowledge from science to decisionmakers, and science diplomacy as the tool kit to this end, oversimplifies real-world politics, yet remains implicit in many conceptions of the field. Their portrait of scientists as coalition builders active in public life foregrounds the inherent political dimension of science within society.

This form of engagement, however, is neither new to history nor to the social sciences, and a historical view extends the authors’ account while sharpening the question of whose knowledge is being embedded, and where it comes from. Latin American science diplomacy actually harbors an enduring tradition with historical referents. These include, among many others, the postwar regional denuclearization through the Treaty of Tlatelolco, the contribution to the founding of UNESCO and more recently to the international open science agenda, and the work of the inter-scientific coalition that produced the Escazú Agreement bridging environmental and human-rights activism with anthropology and ecology. It is therefore not to be defined only as relationship management: that is a method, a pragmatism, but neither its purpose nor its ideals. To resist the tool kit narrative, we must ask what historical values are to be embedded in the ethos of Latin American science diplomacy and whether they are consistent in novel participatory mechanisms such as chambers, councils, and coalitions.

At the UNESCO Chair on Science Diplomacy and Scientific Heritage, we emphasize the need for a critical perspective. The region’s recurring reorganizations of science governance remind us that embedding science in the architecture of government can concentrate authority as readily as it can distribute it. Institutionalization, in other words, is not inherently democratizing; it may also advance symbolic commitments while leaving real problems unaddressed. A sound structure should honor the communities that produce knowledge, ensuring they retain meaningful standing once the institution is built.

We would therefore extend the authors’ framework by inviting the community to consider the values that should guide the ethos of science diplomacy. Alongside their five elements (legal anchoring, sustainable financing, coalition-based governance, social embeddedness, and capacity-building), the science diplomacy we would wish for our region calls for an explicit epistemic, cultural, and ethical commitment, anchored in the value traditions the region has itself produced: open science and Southern epistemologies, among others. Latin America is a global powerhouse in culture and the social sciences; conceiving of science as part of culture thus carries the symbolic leverage that science diplomacy needs, while pressing us to address its guiding principles and ethos. The task ahead is to carry the full plurality of the region’s scientific cultures so that this new science diplomacy sustains not only stronger institutions, but a more just account of where knowledge comes from and whom it serves.

Ana María Cetto

Parsifal F. Islas

Yudy Liliana Tibaduiza Roa

Gabriela Gomes Coelho Ferreira and Claudia Alarcón López convincingly argue that science diplomacy should be understood less as a tool of soft power and more as a political craft—specifically, the practice of embedding scientific expertise into the design and architecture of public institutions.

Based on my experience as a Latin American physicist, a former rector of the University of Campinas in Brazil, and now as director of an organization dedicated to advancing science in the Global South, I agree with the authors that science diplomacy is fundamentally about “relationship management” and coalition-building. Becoming a science diplomat is a natural evolution for scientists who wish to extend their impact beyond the laboratory and into the complex arenas of public policy and governance.

However, two major challenges arise. The first is the implicit acceptance of an “extractive” model that expects scientists to juggle an increasing number of tasks. Researchers already face multiple demands: publishing; mentoring the next generation; and engaging with the public, funding agencies, and the private sector. If we expect them to also serve as diplomats, we risk stretching them too thin. Just as we would not want an open-heart surgeon stepping away from practice to fulfill diplomatic duties, we must recognize that many scientists—particularly in highly specialized fields—need to concentrate on their core research to drive innovation.

The second challenge is the chronic lack of opportunities in the developing world for capacity-building in the foundational elements of science diplomacy: communication, negotiation, and policy engagement. The authors note that the professionalization of science diplomats was key to the success of Brazil’s Scientific Advisory Chamber. Yet many research institutions and governments in the Global South still lack formal training frameworks in these skills. For example, a 2023 study found that of 122 academic programs teaching science communication worldwide, only three were in Africa.

This gap must be addressed. In collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and other partners, my organization conducts workshops aimed at building bridges between science and diplomacy. Over more than a decade, these have prepared 434 alumni from 92 countries who are now influencing policy throughout the developing world. Demand, however, far exceeds our current capacity. This focus on capacity-building is consistent with UNESCO’s 2026 recommendations for strengthening its role in science diplomacy in South-East Europe, which call for focusing on “long-term capacity development by strengthening the skills, incentives, and institutional roles of actors operating at the science-policy-diplomacy interface.”

The transition from ad hoc scientific advice to recognized public service, as the authors describe, is essential. But access to the necessary skills for this transition depends less on individual willingness than on the availability of structured opportunities. Scientists should not be forced to become diplomats. For the new science diplomacy to thrive, however, academic institutions and governments must take responsibility for empowering any scientist willing to act as an agent of change or any diplomat to better understand the science environment with the training, innovation capacity, and support they need to succeed.

Marcelo Knobel

Gabriela Gomes Coelho Ferreira and Claudia Alarcón López make a valuable contribution documenting real institutional innovations across the region. As someone who works at this same science-policy-diplomacy interface, and who knows the authors’ work, I want to build on their argument while flagging tensions that sharpen rather than diminish it.

The first is definitional. Science diplomacy is the deliberate use of scientific knowledge, institutions, and relationships, by state and nonstate actors, to advance foreign policy objectives and build cooperation across borders, through governmental or intergovernmental channels, in service of shared challenges where science provides what politics alone cannot. By that definition, the authors’ examples are better characterized as participatory governance with strong science and technology dimensions. That is consequential work, but science diplomacy requires a governmental or intergovernmental vector: a deliberate connection, originating from or eventually recognized by state actors, between scientific communities and the mechanisms through which cross-border cooperation is built and sustained.

This distinction maps onto the difference between what is called Track 2 science diplomacy, which is led by scientists and driven by civil society initiatives outside formal governmental channels, and Track 1.5 diplomacy, where those initiatives achieve governmental recognition and connect scientific authority to political decisionmaking. Most of the examples the authors identify are Track 2 in character, yet presented as if Track 1.5 status has been achieved and consolidated. That assumption deserves scrutiny, from two directions.

The first source of fragility is domestic political change. Brazil is offered as the strongest case, where a presidential decree in 2023 established a Scientific Advisory Chamber under the reorganized Interministerial Committee on Climate Change built in the shadow of a prior administration that dismantled the same governance architecture the decree now reconstructs. The authors’ five-element model of how science diplomacy can shape institutional and governance architecture explains what made rebuilding possible. What it does not fully reckon with is the condition their own cases demonstrate most clearly: Science diplomacy, however institutionally anchored, remains vulnerable to subordination by the foreign policy priorities of whoever holds power. With Brazil’s next election in October 2026, that question is not theoretical.

The second source of fragility is structural asymmetry. Many of the governance innovations the authors describe remain dependent on international bodies, funding streams, and partnerships whose continuity is not guaranteed. When a dominant partner withdraws, as is happening with US engagements across multiple international scientific and development frameworks, initiatives collapse through external structural withdrawal rather than domestic rupture. The seat at the table disappears when the table is moved. This vulnerability is distinct from, and compounds, the domestic fragility the Brazil example illustrates.

The authors are right that a new era of science diplomacy is taking shape. The critical variable, however, is not geographic. It is whether scientific coalitions are adaptable enough to survive political transitions, reciprocal enough to withstand asymmetric dependencies, and connected enough through durable channels to sustain impact when conditions shift. That is the harder question their cases invite us to ask, and one the region—indeed, the world—is being forced to answer in real time.

Franklin Carrero-Martínez