On November 16, 2021, the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) hosted the Russian-German symposium titled «Interaction between climate coverage and science diplomacy» in which young scientists, scientific communicators and journalists from Germany and Russia took part. The symposium was accompanied by a podium discussion «Together for climate improvement – how joint climate research can improve the diplomatic climate». Lake Baikal Foundation was invited to participate in these bilateral meetings by the German Embassy in Moscow, the Helmholtz Association, RAS, and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ Potsdam) with the support of the German House of Science and Innovation.
The events were timed to the ceremonial launch of the Together for a Better Climate – Active Scientific Diplomacy with Russia – BRIDGE project, which is aimed at joint climate and sustainable development research and implies a number of bilateral events. As part of the symposium, the role of scientific journalism in achieving the goals of science diplomacy was touched upon. In addition to the lecture part, the event included a discussion on effective scientific communication in the field of climate change in the format of working groups. Evgenia Elkina, project manager at Lake Baikal Foundation, presented the results of the working group discussion at the symposium, which were taken into account when preparing recommendations for improving scientific communication, presented later at the podium discussion.
Among the speakers of the podium discussion there were Vice-President of the RAS Yuri Balega, Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation, Special Representative of the President on Climate Issues Ruslan Edelgeriev, German Ambassador to Russia Géza Andreas von Geyr, President of the Association of Communicators in Education and Science (AKSON) Olga Dobrovidova and others. The participants of the discussion agreed that scientific cooperation was an important area of interaction for both states and that the countries had already achieved significant success in this area, despite the existing political circumstances. The experts also noted the high quality of Russian-German research in the natural sciences and stressed the importance of creating financial and political framework conditions for the bilateral exchange of scientific specialists and data.
Lake Baikal Foundation is glad to have had the opportunity to participate in such an international discussion and contribute to the expert discussion on scientific communication in the field of climate change!
