Should Scientific Collaboration Be Easier?
July 28, 2022
One of the Internet’s greatest benefits is that it offers scientists and other smart people the chance to collaborate across the globe. The United Nations and other researchers state that collaboration is essential to solving global warming, biodiversity loss, and curing pandemics. However, The Conversation says it is not that easy in the article, “It’s Getting Harder For Scientists To Collaborate Across Borders-That’s Bad When The World Faces Problems Like Pandemics And Climate Change.”
Collaboration with non-Western countries, such as the tuberculosis research network between South Africa, China, India, Russia, and Brazil led to advancements in basic and applied research. Unfortunately, Earth’s most powerful countries, increases in their nationalism, Russia’s war with Ukraine, and the COVID-19 pandemic have made it difficult for researchers to work together.
Russia has stopped working with all collaboration efforts from the arts to climate science in the Arctic. China has stopped working with the United States on projects involving quantum computing and microelectronics. Russia, China, and other countries have turned science into a tool for international politics.
Stopping international research collaboration is bad:
“But reducing or stopping international research comes with its own risks. It slows down the production of knowledge needed to address long-term global problems and reduces the potential for future scientific collaboration… First, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to an increased openness in global scientific exchange. In particular, there was growth in the number of students from developing and non-Western countries going to universities in the West. This movement formed networks of researchers from many countries. Second, massively collaborative scientific efforts – such as the Human Genome Project – as well as the ever-growing importance of expensive, large research laboratories and instruments have fueled international collaboration. Finally, the digital revolution has made it much easier to communicate and share data across borders. This all resulted in collaborative and fruitful research in many fields including gene technology, climate science and artificial intelligence. While Western countries dominated the scientific landscape of the 20th century, globalization has benefited many non-Western countries.”
The European Union, China, and United States are competing for technological and scientific leadership. The US and European Union explained that the loss of scientific and technological leadership leads to fewer economic opportunities and threatens democracy.
The US does want to limit China’s international influence and scientific progress. The US launched a large anti-espionage effort called the China Initiative to uncover connections US-Chinese links in corporate and academic sectors. Nothing was substantiated, but three US-based scholars were convicted when they failed to disclose Chinese ties. The China Initiative was criticized, then President Biden ended it in 2022.
The US, however, still has trade sanctions on Chinese countries to curtail China’s science and technology industries. The European Union is doing the same. China wants its science, technology, and scholarly industries to serve its interests. All three powers are wary of any collaboration.
Scientists want to work together, but governments and dictators ruin the fun for everyone.
Whitney Grace, July 28, 2022
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
