{"id":30365,"date":"2022-07-13T02:22:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T02:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=30365"},"modified":"2022-07-14T02:27:54","modified_gmt":"2022-07-14T02:27:54","slug":"its-getting-harder-for-scientists-to-collaborate-across-borders-thats-bad-when-the-world-faces-global-problems-like-pandemics-and-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/its-getting-harder-for-scientists-to-collaborate-across-borders-thats-bad-when-the-world-faces-global-problems-like-pandemics-and-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s getting harder for scientists to collaborate across borders \u2013 that\u2019s bad when the world faces global problems like pandemics and climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tommy Shih<\/a>, Lund University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United Nations<\/a> and many researchers have emphasized the critical role international collaborative science plays<\/a> in solving global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss and pandemics. The rise of non-Western countries as science powers is helping to drive this type of global cooperative research. For example, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa formed a tuberculosis research network in 2017<\/a> and are making significant advancements on basic and applied research into the disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in the past few years, growing tensions among superpowers<\/a>, increasing nationalism<\/a>, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have contributed to nations\u2019 behaving in more distrustful and insular ways overall. One result is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for researchers to collaborate with scholars in other nations<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The near-global cessation of collaboration<\/a> with Russian scholars following the invasion of Ukraine \u2013 in everything from humanities research to climate science in the Arctic<\/a> \u2013 is one example of science being a victim of \u2013 and used as a tool for \u2013 international politics. Scientific collaboration between China and the U.S.<\/a> is also breaking down in fields like microelectronics and quantum computing<\/a> because of national security concerns on both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a policy expert who studies<\/a> international research collaboration as it relates to global problems and geopolitical polarization. I understand the need for democratic countries to respond to the the growing strength of authoritarian countries such as China and acute crises like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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