FIGURE 1: Evolution of Science Systems’ Contributions with Society, emphasizing disciplinary as a root concept.

Science diplomacy in the Arctic has already proven its global relevance, as highlighted by the Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Scientific Cooperation signed by the foreign ministers of the eight Arctic states as well as from the Governments of Greenland and the Faroe Islands on 11 May 2017 at the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska (Figure2, Table 1).Beyond governments, the Arctic Science Agreement requires active and influential contributions from the international Arctic science community to achieve progress with enhancing international Arctic scientific cooperation, requiring leadership with science diplomats.

FIGURE 2: INSTITUTIONAL INTERPLAY WITH THE ARCTIC SCIENCE AGREEMENT and other circumpolar Arctic governance mechanisms adopted after 2009 (Table 1), closely coupled with the international framework of the Law of the Sea, to which the eight Arctic States and six Indigenous Peoples Organizations “remain committed” (Vision of the Arctic. Arctic Council Secretariat 2013).

Informed Decisionmaking – Theoretical Framework as the “engine of science diplomacy”.  The theory is an informed decision “operates across a continuum of urgencies” with scalability at personal-to-planetary levels, paralleling choices at the start of every negotiation to begin from a position of common interests or conflict, like a glass half full or empty.  The analogy at a personal level is driving a car with immediate challenges on left and right, considering the red lights ahead and strategies to navigate into the future with recognition of rear view.  Elaborated from the Vienna Dialogue Team (2017), Berkman et al. (2022) and Council of Canadian Academies (2024).

Informed Decisionmaking – Methodology Framework  as an holistic methodology with science diplomacy to apply, train and refine across a ‘continuum of urgencies’, characterizing the scope of an informed decision, as the apex goal with governance mechanisms and built infrastructure as well their coupling for sustainable development.  With holistic integration, questions of common concern reveal the methods of science to study change, generating the necessary data to produce answers in a transdisciplinary manner.  These stages of research are transformed into action with evidence for decisions, involving institutions and their decisionmakers.  Across the data-evidence interface, the diplomacy with science simply is in revealing options (without advocacy), which can be used or ignored explicitly, respecting the institutions.  Starting with questions among allies and adversaries underlies the skill to build common interests.  The engine of informed decisionmaking operates with common-interest building, enhancing research capacities as a positive feedback with individuals contributing as observers and participants inclusively. See the Springer Informed Decisionmaking for Sustainability book series.  Elaborated from Berkman et al. (2017, 2020, 2022).