Task Force on Capacity Building
Our Support to Strengthen Your Expertise
The interest from scientists and innovators, diplomats and policy makers to learn more and engage at the science-diplomacy nexus has been growing all around the world. Since its launch in 2021 the EU Science Diplomacy an interdisciplinary team of experienced experts has worked on identifying needs, analysing current developments and creating suitable capacity-building activities – a Task Force on Capacity Building.
We define the term “Capacity Building” as the process of developing and strengthening the skills, abilities, processes and resources that organisations and individuals need to survive, adapt, and thrive in the field of science diplomacy in a fast-changing world.
If you plan to strengthen the science diplomacy expertise in your organisation or team, please do not hesitate to contact the chair of the Task Force Maria Josten, DLR Projektträger, Germany (maria.josten@dlr.de).
Our objectives are
- to identify ongoing efforts aimed at different target groups, as well as gaps in the overall capacity building landscape.
- to develop recommendations or to directly implement required actions in order to have a critical mass of trained and informed personnel across academia, governmental and private sectors.
- to use synergies as well as to strengthen the exchange and the collection of relevant materials within the EU Science Diplomacy Alliance.
- to support upcoming training activities and curriculum development of external organisations.
- to promote the need of capacity building measures in the field of science diplomacy.
Our activities are visible and impactful (selected examples):
- In April 2026, the Task Force chair has published an interview on "Developing strategies for resilient scientific cooperation worldwide", covering the topic capacity building.
- Following the UNESCO Global Ministerial Dialogue on Science Diplomacy and with support from the European Union and UNESCO , we organised a workshop on capacity building at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris and online on 27 March 2025.
- In Autumn 2025 we offered and contributed to various training activities like the Advanced Training Course “Challenges and Perspectives of Science Diplomacy in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe” in Trieste and the virtual Asia-Europe Training on Science and Technology Diplomacy.
- End of 2024 we published a Policy Brief on Capacity Building in Science Diplomacy, which highlights the specific experiences and viewpoints of EU SD Alliance members and partners.
- In 2023 – 2024 we cooperated with the COST Association (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) for the organisation of several science diplomacy trainings, held at the premises of COST in Brussels and involved researchers from newly funded COST actions.
- In 2022 we updated the most widely embraced Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on science diplomacy established by the S4D4C project.
Our Task Force members have a wide range of expertise:
ARVIST, CEI, CNR, DLR, FECYT, MCAA, Politecnico Milano, SCIENCE DIPLOMACY CENTER, TWAS, UK Young Academy, UCL, University Trieste