US eyes new role for research funding in diplomacy

Joe Biden’s top science advisers are pushing for the creation of a new research funding division within the US State Department to give diplomats the ability to trade US science alliances for geopolitical favours.

The plan, sketched out in a White House strategy document, is meant to address a bipartisan concern that the US is being badly outmanoeuvred by both allies and adversaries in converting research investments into strategic global alliances.

US science funding agencies, according to the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), are being “overwhelmed by the number of requests from international partners for bilateral science and/or technology collaboration”.

“Many countries want science and technology to be a cornerstone of our bilateral relationship,” the OSTP told Times Higher Education. “The issue comes when agencies can’t respond to these requests due to significant constraints, and this inability could lead to misinterpretations. We want to fix this.”

US academic science is on board. According to Tobin Smith, vice-president for policy at the Association of American Universities (AAU): “Providing additional mechanisms to help promote research collaboration between the US and like-minded countries – particularly in areas of strategic research – is definitely something AAU supports and encourages.”

The likely size and form of a State Department research funding agency was not yet clear, administration officials and other experts said. But Mr Biden and Congress laid the groundwork, one former Trump administration official said, with the landmark five-year, $280 billion (£250 billion) science spending measure just enacted in August.

That bill, which had some origins under Donald Trump, included an allocation of $500 million “for economic and tech diplomacy” that could be used for the State Department research operation, said Keith Krach, a former US undersecretary of state.

“This is a worthwhile value proposition that we can offer. In this epic struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, it’s a meaningful thing to put in our toolkit,” said Mr Krach, who is the chair and co-founder of the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University.

The Biden administration outlined its thinking in a congressionally required biennial report on international cooperation on science and technology that it just submitted to lawmakers. One of the authors at the Biden White House said the administration recognised the potential ways that the national investment in scientific research “could be used as the tool of soft power influence”.

“Those types of requests are already happening, and they’re quite frequent, from our foreign partners,” said the author, who was permitted to discuss the administration’s report on the condition of not being identified. “Being able to answer in the affirmative could hold substantial strategic value for the US.”

The idea was driven, the author said, in part by watching both China and Europe. China’s centralised and strategic approach to science puts an emphasis on collaborations in such places as Africa, south Asia and Latin America, the White House review says. The US, meanwhile, struggles to create deep partnerships in such areas, the review says, because the federal government does not fully coordinate its research activities with its foreign development agencies or its customs and border policies.

The White House review also expresses admiration for Horizon Europe, the ongoing European Union plan for collectively spending more than $100 billion over seven years on research and innovation work among member countries. Horizon Europe was created to encourage scientific cooperation within the EU, the author said, but the resulting model has proven universally adaptable beyond Europe and is attracting a wide range of alliances that include Tunisia, Algeria, Israel, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com