Call for applications, Science Diplomacy Academy
-Academic Programme for Future Scientific Leaders
The face of international science is changing. Opportunities for new collaboration are appearing, while challenges to open science are also growing. How can researchers, research teams, and universities navigate this landscape? Academic leaders of the near future need fluency in addressing this question. The Science Diplomacy Academy will help participants build this fluency.
Science diplomacy is a broad way of describing how academic collaborations can solve shared challenges and improve international relationships. It is indeed not a new phenomenon. Nations and cultures have long built relationships based on education, research and innovation, though it may have been labelled differently. Diplomatic actions can be used to facilitate international academic collaboration and research can be used as a soft power to advance diplomatic objectives as well as provide expertise and impact to global challenges such as migration, pandemics and climate change.
The Science Diplomacy Academy is an academic leadership programme focused on the next generation of academic leaders in Korea and Sweden. The programme will provide the selected scholars with knowledge, tools and a network to be academic leaders with an impact in a dynamic and global society. The participants will increase their proficiency in leading and navigating international research and collaboration initiatives with the support of scholars, high-level tutors and peer participants. Topics will include intercultural competences, networking, academic freedom, risk assessments in international collaborations, science communication and diplomacy. The programme is built on co-creation. The integration of the participants’ needs, ideas and challenges are built into its design.
At the end of the Science Diplomacy Academy, the participants will:
recognise that good leadership starts from within
feel strengthened in their capacity to deal with challenges concerning their professional role
develop great opportunities for worldwide networking outside their own home organisation, country and region
understand how to build relationship based on curiosity and encouragement rather than fixed ideals and hierarchy
learn about the interface between science diplomacy and international policy, to enhance their capacities to handle these areas.
Participants
The Science Diplomacy Academy is a leadership programme designed to give 30 participants tools to navigate in a complex terrain of globalisation and academia. There will be 15 participants from Sweden and Korea respectively, who will follow the programme. Participants are expected to attend the full 2-year programme and take serious notice of timing and “in-between-session” responsibilities. Equality, diversity and inclusion will be embedded at all levels. We encourage applications from all research disciplines.
Eligible participants are researchers with an excellent track-record, such as tenured or tenure-track faculty members at the rank of assistant professor (biträdande lektor), within 10 years after their PhD. This opportunity is particularly well-suited for individuals aspiring to, or currently holding, leadership positions in research institutes or other managerial positions (i.e., leading a research group or a collaborative team).
Proficiency in English including understanding, speaking and writing is essential, as the whole program will be conducted in English.
Set-up
The programme is based on active participation and blended learning. It will give the participants opportunities to explore themes that are of concern for the next generation academic leaders in a complex and changing world.
Content
The program is organized around three themes:
1. Leadership in intercultural settings
Leadership, self-insight and motivation: Learning how experience and knowledge can be used in order to learn and develop as a leader in a wicked world.
Networking skills: Identifying and cultivating relationships with key stakeholders both in- and outside of academia.
Intercultural competencies: Navigating cultural differences and building effective relationships across diverse cultures, languages, and disciplines.
2. Academic leadership and collegial responsibilities
Academic Freedom: Equipping academic leaders with collegial responsibilities to address situations when academic freedom is at stake.
Transformation projects: Initiating, implementing and leading transformative and interdisciplinary projects for a sustainable transformation of values relating to democracy and society.
Risk Assessment: Learning how to assess and confront risks in international collaborations, in order to foster solid and responsible cooperation.
3. Management for agility, outreach and impact
Universities in a changing world: Cooperating and partnering with trust in a multi-facetted and international setting.
Science communication: Developing the ability to communicate complex scholarly information to policymakers and other stakeholders.
Science and diplomacy: Elaborating how academic leaders and science diplomacy can tackle geopolitical challenges in a fragmented and multipolar world. Inquiring how evidence and foresight can make scholarship and science diplomacy more strategic, effective and resilient.
Planning and timing
The Science Diplomacy Academy is a leadership programme over a period of two years. Some of the meetings will be organised online. All participants will come together for three real-life meetings, one of them in Sweden. Monthly digital meetings will be held online for continuous work. Altogether, the Science Diplomacy Academy corresponds to approximately one hour/week, in addition to the in-person sessions. The programme starts this year in September 2024 and the first in-person session is in Korea between November 11-15, 2024.
The programme takes place over a two-year period, with three in-person sessions:
Session 1 in Korea: Leadership in intercultural settings (November 11-15, 2024)
Session 2 in Korea: Academic leadership and collegial responsibilities (November 2025)
Session 3 in Sweden: Management for agility, outreach and impact (November 2026). After the third session, the participants will meet with relevant persons working with Science Diplomacy at the European Union in Brussels, Belgium.
In between the in-person sessions there will be 3–5 digital sessions per year.
Buddy
All participants will each year work in pairs in a buddy system, which is purposefully designed to foster meaningful connections throughout the program. All participants will thus be – and have – one buddy per year. The primary aim for the buddies is to enrich the overall learning experience by cultivating collaborative peer learning, offering personal support, and encouraging diverse perspectives. The participants in the programme will thus work closely with two different individuals during their 2 year-journey, promoting enduring relationships that extend beyond the program’s duration and enriching their growth as future academic leaders in a complex and evolving world.
Facilitators
Two facilitators will lead the group through the various themes and keep everything together. The facilitators are the ‘travel companion’ of the group and creates optimal learning situations and provides short leadership inputs. The facilitators and the coordinators will prepare the programme of each session.
Coordinators
Each SKERIC-university has a programme coordinator. The coordinators are the support persons at the participants home universities, well-informed about the program dynamics and acting as the link to the SKERIC-organization. These coordinators will follow up on sessions and host in-between meetings. Furthermore, the coordinators will take care of all logistical matters at the home university and when they are hosting a session.
Expenses
The programme, including travel costs and accommodation, for the selected participants is covered by the SKERIC-universities. Each university will cover the expenses for travel and accommodation during the in-person sessions for their participants, as well as their fees for travel visa and travel insurance. General spending money is not covered by SKERIC.
Selection and contact persons
Each SKERIC university handles their own application procedures/selection. For more information, contact the contact person for the programme at your home university:
Korea University: Jongug Jeon
Seoul National University: Erik Johan Mobrand
Pohang University of Science and Technology: Tae Eun Kim
KTH Royal Institute of Technology: Charlotte Almqvist
Lund University: Henrik Hofvendahl
Umeå University: Helena Gradin
University of Gothenburg: Sigridur Beck
Uppsala University: Fanny Lagerberg