Taking part in the World Conference on Science for the Twenty-First Century: A New Commitment, organised by UNESCO and International Council for Science (ICSU), held in Budapest, Hungary, were some 1,800 delegates from 155 countries, 28 Intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), more than 60 international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and national governments and institutions, industry, and included more than 80 Ministers of Science and Technology, Research and Education or their equivalents scientists, representatives of the general public, and more than 250 members of the worldwide media, including a dedicated team from Nature. The six-day conference offered a forum for debate on major science and related societal issues, with delegates agreeing on a number of principles and guidelines for shaping the course of science, research and science-society relations in the new millennium. Slightly fewer than one in four national delegates to the Conference were women.
The World Conference on Science was conceived as a process consisting of a preparatory phase, the Conference itself and a vigorous follow-up programme. A total of 69 meetings organized around the world between June 1995 and June 1999 were associated with the Conference and contributed reports with recommendations to the World Conference on Science.
The two principle documents adopted by the Conference:
– Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge, “which underscored political commitment to the scientific endeavour and to the solution of problems at the interface between science and society”;
Science Agenda – Framework for Action, “a framework for fostering partnerships in science and the use of science for development and the environment”. (World Science Conference website)
Among the thematic issues at the conference was a focus on gender. In the Conference Declaration, participating countries agreed on the need to join with civil society in efforts to “ensure the full participation of women and girls in all aspects of science and technology.” (Malcom, 2006) A focus on traditional knowledge also figured prominently in the preparations and debates of the conference. The thematic meeting on ‘Science and other systems of knowledge’ addressed relationships between scientific and traditional systems of knowledge, and several related recommendations were included in the principle conference documents. For example, in the preamble to the Declaration, the conference considered “that traditional and local knowledge systems, as dynamic expressions of perceiving and understanding the world, can make, and historically have made, a valuable contribution to science and technology, and that there is a need to preserve, protect, research and promote this cultural heritage and empirical knowledge”. (UNESCO, World Science Conference and Traditional Knowledge, 2000)
The Conference aimed to provide an opportunity for discussion “leading to a new social contract for science as we enter the twenty-first century.” (World Science Conference website) But in this strong focus on science in particular, perhaps there was a gap that the conference might have addressed better. Geoffrey Oldham was Rapporteur on the gender theme for the World Science Conference and reflected on the implications of a diminished emphasis on technology and innovation from the conference discussions. “This conference was devoted mainly to science rather than technology and innovation. This meeting was never meant to be concerned solely with the problems of science and the developing world, but nevertheless given the representation at the meeting of large numbers of representatives from these countries, the issue of science and development was widely discussed. But the discussion was usually in the wider context of general issues of ethics, international collaboration and gender,” as well as significant reference to traditional knowledge. “Also, because it was almost entirely focussed on science it did not do justice to the issues of technology and innovation which were perhaps of greater concern to developing country governments.” (Oldham, forthcoming)
Sources:
World Science Conference website. http://www.unesco.org/science/wcs/
Oldham, pers. comm.
Oldham, G., forthcoming. ‘45 Years On’ in Carr, M. and T. Marjoram (eds) Minding the Gap: Technology, Policy and Poverty Reduction, UNESCO.
Malcom, S. (2006) ‘Making the Case for Gender’, Paper for the L20 Leader’s Forum Meeting on ‘Furthering Science and Technology’ held at Maastricht, Netherlands, 7-8 March 2006, hosted by the United Nations University Institute for New Technologies. Paper accessible online at: http://www.l20.org/publications/21_T9_Sci_Malcom.pdf
UNESCO, World Science Conference and Traditional Knowledge, 2000. http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=5151&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html