This year’s S20 Communique calls upon the governments of the G20 to build resilient health systems urgently and to bolster multidisciplinary science and technology to prepare us for climate change and the pandemics of the future. It also calls for G20 governments to strengthen the nexus between data, research, policy and practice.
‘The communiqué resonates strongly with UNESCO’, observed UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences, Shamila Nair-Bedouelle, at the summit, which was held virtually.
Scientific literacy more important than ever
‘UNESCO is convinced that science and technology must drive change and prepare the world for future global emergencies’, she added. However, for science and technology to take on this role, it is essential that basic scientific understanding not be limited to the world of science. The pandemic has shown us that scientific literacy is more important now than ever’.
Ms Nair-Bedouelle recalled that, although scientists and scientific knowledge had ‘been widely praised for developing new vaccines in record time and helping to keep our societies and the economy functioning, the pandemic had also revealed – and exacerbated – elements of public scepticism and mistrust towards science and scientists’.
She posited that finding innovative solutions to place humanity on a more sustainable development path would demand a vibrant scientific effort not only from the scientific community but from society as a whole.
Open science can engage society in finding innovative solutions
She suggested that a wider practice of open science could help to engage society as a whole in finding innovative solutions for more sustainable development. This view is widely shared, which is why UNESCO’s 193 Member States adopted the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science in November last year. It aims to reduce inequalities in science and technology by ensuring that research findings are accessible to all. Its adoption shows that the world is ready to move beyond simply opening up access to the outputs of science, that it wishes to progress towards an open engagement with society, open dialogue with other knowledge systems and an open co-creation of the infrastructure and tools used to conduct science.
This is all the more urgent, in that the pandemic has exposed gaps in scientific capacity and infrastructure in many parts of the world, where a limited or non-existent participation in creating and adopting scientific solutions to COVID-19 has made citizens more vulnerable to the crisis. The underrepresentation of women in science marks a significant loss of human potential, for instance: just one researcher in three is a woman, according to the UNESCO Science Report (2021).
The Recommendation defines shared values and principles for open science to ensure that everyone can participate in science and benefit from scientific progress.
A need for long-term investment in scientific research and open science
‘We ask a lot of science’, observed the Assistant Director-General. ‘We ask it to support the global economy, to drive positive societal change, to improve and enhance the health system, to tackle environmental crises and to improve our ability to adapt to the impact of climate change’.
She went on to say that, ‘in order to allow science and technology to respond to all these demands, UNESCO is calling for long-term investment in scientific research and open science. We must ensure that international scientific collaboration continues to thrive and inform national and global policies. That will require a sustained political and financial commitment to scientific endeavour. A healthy scientific community is the fruit of a sustained, long-term engagement’.
In 2015, governments committed to raising their research effort but data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics shows that, although 32 countries raised their research spending by at least 0.1% of GDP in the years to 2018, the domestic research effort dropped in another 13 countries, including some G20 countries.
Established in 2017, the S20 is one of the most recent engagement groups of the G20. Analogous to the G20, it has a non-permanent rotating secretariat and operates like a forum rather than as an organization. The S20 supports the G20 by fostering an official dialogue with the scientific community. Each S20 task force focuses on one encompassing topic that is relevant to scientists, policymakers and society alike.
