European Leadership in Cultural, Science and Innovation Diplomacy

The European Leadership in Cultural, Science and Innovation Diplomacy (EL-CSID) project analyses the relevance of cultural, science and innovation diplomacy for EU external relations, locating developments in these fields in the evolving global context.

Cultural and science diplomacy have played an increasing role in the European diplomatic story in recent years, and the European Union (EU) has made a major start articulating the relevance of cultural and science for its external relations. As yet however, an evolving strategy for the development of science and cultural diplomacy remains to be fully articulated, as do the longer-term implications of the continued development of cultural and science diplomacy in today’s fast changing multipolar and digitised world.

Moreover, as innovation policy has come to be an increasingly decisive ingredient in the wider policy decisions made by countries and the world’s regions, it should be recognised as part of any conversation about science and cultural diplomacy. In this context, it becomes essential to make explicit the assumptions underpinning much of the practices at work in the EU’s cultural, science and innovation diplomacy work. The ambition of EL-CSID is to do precisely this with a view to contributing to a strengthening of EU policy towards the use of science, culture and innovation in its wider diplomacy as well as to deepening scholarly understanding of diplomacy as an abiding institution.

The EL-CSID project is coordinated at the Institute for European Studies (IES) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and consists of a consortium of nine partners from Belgium, Germany, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Slovenia, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

The project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 693799. It runs from March 2016 to February 2019.