Pretoria's Science Diplomacy Test

South Africa meets three of the four criteria for a science diplomacy practitioner. The one it is missing decides whether Pretoria negotiates as a foreign policy actor or as a research partner.

Curtis Matiti
Fellow, The Global Lens: Science Diplomacy in Focus
PhD Candidate in Political Studies, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town

I will be at the inaugural Africa Science Diplomacy Conference (ASDC) in Pretoria in late November, with others committed to shaping Africa's science diplomacy. I recently drafted a Science Diplomacy Cadet Programme concept note, proposing a two-year accredited programme to train STEM and International Relations graduates into science diplomats, and shared it with the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) and other relevant institutions. It is imperative that South Africa has trained science diplomats to shape its own agenda.

South Africa has spent the last several years establishing itself as an active actor in the field and practice of science diplomacy, building science diplomacy institutions and initiatives: a lead department, a continental flagship platform, and a national strategy still in development, as Africa seeks to shape its own science diplomacy agenda. The question is not whether they exist. It is whether they give Pretoria, and Africa more broadly, real influence over the scientific and technological decisions now shaping geopolitics. I test that against four criteria.

The test: South Africa's science diplomacy practice

Science diplomacy in South Africa is formally led by DSTI, through its strategic programme, International Cooperation and Resources (ICR), which influences regional, continental and international science, technology and innovation (STI) discourse, decision-making and policy formulation to advance Pretoria's foreign policy and national interests (Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, n.d.). In 2022, DSTI and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) launched the Science Diplomacy Capital for Africa (SDCfA) flagship to promote international scientific collaboration across Africa, augment African perspectives in global science diplomacy discussions and policy development, capacity building, and address the continent's persistent social issues (Science Diplomacy Capital for Africa, n.d.).

But institutions alone do not make a country a science diplomacy practitioner. Drawing on Pierre Bruno Ruffini's interview in Müller et al. (2020) and the Science Diplomacy Monitor (2026), a country practises science diplomacy when it has four things: an official science diplomacy strategy (preceded by STI policies intending to practise science diplomacy), science attachés posted abroad, a science advisor to the minister of foreign affairs, and visible international scientific engagement through international initiatives, joint research and publications, and events. South Africa meets three of the four. One of the three is still on paper, and the fourth is missing.

Criterion 1: An official strategy (committed, not yet published)

South Africa is developing its national science diplomacy strategy, as “effective use of science diplomacy requires a coherent strategy” (Turekian, 2012, p.2). The commitment runs through DSTI's STI policies. The 2019 White Paper on STI called for strategically utilising science diplomacy to support foreign policy and STI objectives, and abandoning the ad-hoc approach (DSTI, 2019, p.59). The STI Decadal Plan 2022-2032 states that “a Science Diplomacy Strategy will be developed, to inter alia, improve the efficiency of international cooperation initiatives” (DSTI, 2022, p.22). The Revised 2025-2030 Strategic Plan reaffirms that science diplomacy will be integrated into national priorities, warranting a synchronised, high-impact STI strategy (DSTI, 2025, p.71). The strategy must align with national priorities and foreign policy goals, and respect procedural principles (sensitivity, inclusiveness, transparency) and infrastructural principles (capacities, capabilities, trust) (Turekian, 2012, p.2; Müller et al., 2020). DSTI should not write it alone. Research institutions, universities, think tanks, civil society and, above all, DIRCO should help shape it.

Criterion 2: Science attachés abroad (met)

Pretoria maintains science attachés formally designated “Science & Technology” Minister Counsellors in Belgium and Japan (DIRCO, n.d.). The STI Section in Belgium, covering the European Union (EU), is mandated to oversee the strategic development, advancement and management of STI cooperation between Pretoria and the EU, to expand research and innovation priorities, while advancing foreign policy objectives through science diplomacy (Embassy of the Republic of South Africa, n.d.). The STI Office in Japan oversees STI cooperation between Pretoria and Tokyo, including university agreements, cooperative research between the two countries' research organisations and skills and knowledge development (Science, Technology and Innovation Office, n.d.). The network is real, though small.

Criterion 3: Visible international engagement (met)

Pretoria's science diplomacy is visible through research, publications and events, such as the inaugural 2025 Science Diplomacy Summer School run by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) (2025) and the upcoming inaugural ASDC (2026), which aims to make Africa a leader that shapes science diplomacy agendas rather than a passive participant. The ASDC runs from 30 November to 1 December and is followed by the Science Forum South Africa (2026) from 2 to 4 December 2026.

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an international mega-science project to build and operate the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescope, co-located across South Africa and Australia with global headquarters in the United Kingdom (UK), is the country's clearest international initiative (Serra & Treacy, 2017). This is a core example of “diplomacy for science”, due to the project being led by an intergovernmental organisation, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), which ensures that there are pooled resources, knowledge and expertise to build, operate and maintain the telescopes (Serra & Treacy, 2017).

As major powers restrict strategic technologies and data, Pretoria needs to keep large scientific partnerships open, as it does in the SKA. DSTI Director-General Dr Mlungisi Cele recently met the SKAO's newly appointed Director-General, Prof. Jessica Dempsey, to affirm the country's commitment to international scientific partnerships and its standing in radio astronomy (DSTI, 2026a). SKAO maintains open science and applies the FAIR principles (findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability) so that research is collaborative, transparent and accessible to all. Its SKA Regional Centres (SRCs) put this into practice by giving SKA scientists and ordinary users access to the data and the resources to process it (SKA Observatory, n.d.). Pretoria's recent National Open Science Policy extends the commitment, requiring publicly funded research outputs and data to be FAIR compliant (DSTI, 2026b). However, openness now carries research security concerns about how open governments can be with sensitive information that could impact national security.

Criterion 4: A science advisor to the foreign minister (missing)

South Africa has no science advisor inside DIRCO. This is the one criterion missing from its science diplomacy architecture. Turekian and Gluckman (2024, p.55) emphasise that for countries to address the world's issues, science must be embedded in their diplomatic toolkit by placing science advisors within their foreign ministries. Pierre Bruno Ruffini in Müller et al. (2020) asserts that science diplomacy practices are illustrated by what the foreign affairs ministries do to link science to the country's foreign policy objectives. This advisory link is vital because the field practised here is science diplomacy, and not international STI cooperation. Science diplomacy uses scientific collaboration as soft power to tackle global challenges, improve international relations and advance foreign policy objectives (The Royal Society & The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2010). It cannot be confined to only advancing STI-related activities, but diplomatic objectives too. The integration of scientific advice into foreign ministries is becoming vital to ensure that foreign policy challenges are addressed by evidence-informed foreign policies (Turekian & Kishi, 2017). Science advisors also contribute to foresight and risk management by using observations and data from today's challenges to run hypotheses to tackle future events, ensuring policymakers are not reactionary in their responses (Turekian & Kishi, 2017). As new opportunities and challenges emerge, necessitating the input of science and technology, DIRCO can benefit from appointing a science advisor to assist in navigating these new developments and reinforce its commitment to building a better world as per its foreign policy (Department of International Relations & Cooperation (DIRCO), 2011).

Comparative perspective

Japan, like numerous other states, has embedded its science diplomacy within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its diplomatic service (Asano, 2026). The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the subsequent tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident prompted a broader debate about how scientific advice should be integrated into public policy (Sato & Arimoto, 2016, p.2). This led to a series of Science and Technology (S&T) strategies, including the Fourth Science and Technology Basic Plan (FY2011–FY2015), which formally integrated science diplomacy within the country's national STI policy framework (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 2011; Asano, 2026). Thereafter, Japan institutionalised Science and Technology Diplomacy within its Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) by creating the position of Science and Technology Advisor to MOFA in 2015, an official mechanism linking scientific expertise with diplomatic objectives (Sunami et al., 2015, p.245; Sato & Arimoto, 2016, p.7). Tokyo also places science attachés in six key missions: India, Israel, Sweden, the UK, the EU Mission in Brussels and the United States (US) (Science Diplomacy Monitor, 2026).

Domestic crisis, rapid technological change, the growing role of scientific advice in diplomatic issues and global challenges led to an advisor who would “better utilise scientific expertise in planning and implementing diplomatic policy” (MOFA, 2015; Sato & Arimoto, 2016, p.7). Japan now weighs diplomatic factors when it engages in international research collaborations, initiatives and events, because they produce prolonged engagement between aligned partners and long-term benefits through networks, trust and shared knowledge (Asano, 2026). Its international joint research programmes, such as SATREPS, ASPIRE, NEXUS and LOTUS, pair research with diplomatic goals, so that they produce scientific outcomes, strengthen bilateral ties and place Tokyo as a leader on global issues (Asano, 2026).

Japan and South Africa maintain a formal STI partnership established in 2003, making Pretoria the only sub-Saharan country with a bilateral STI agreement with Tokyo (MOFA, 2003; DSTI, 2024). Japan and South African researchers have collaborated in six projects, funded through Japan's Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS), including Observational Studies in South African Mines to Mitigate Seismic Risks and the ongoing Development of New Ammonia Synthesis System using Renewable Energy and Hydrogen (Japan Science and Technology Agency, n.d.). The partnership serves both scientific and diplomatic objectives. What South Africa lacks is the advisory link to its foreign ministry that Japan built.

Where the gap shows

DSTI and DIRCO maintain interdepartmental cooperation, but it needs to be amplified more visibly. In 2012, the then Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, wrote that the department does not have “exclusive responsibility for matters related to science diplomacy” and works closely with other departments including DIRCO (Pandor, 2012). Minister Pandor closed by stating that she had painted a “rosy picture” of Pretoria’s science diplomacy developments and that there are “obstacles, dead ends, and frustrations” that need to be interrogated (Pandor, 2012). The evidence sits in South Africa's own structures. The SDCfA's leadership, steering committee, implementation team and emissaries lack a DIRCO representative. The advisory committee of the inaugural ASDC in late November lacks one too. There is no science advisor inside DIRCO. These need to be addressed to ensure that Pretoria's science diplomacy institutions and initiatives have real influence over the scientific and technological decisions now shaping geopolitics. Pretoria does possess the capacity to enact these changes, and now is the time to act, in this era of disruption.

The gap has a history. South Africa's Foreign Policy document, approved in 2011, mentions economic diplomacy but not science diplomacy (DIRCO, 2011, p.26). To be fair, the term was still new when it was adopted. The paper did acknowledge that scientific and technological innovation is a key global driver and a foundation for cooperation, but it did not institutionalise science diplomacy within DIRCO (DIRCO, 2011, p.14). The integration of science diplomacy only emerged later under DSTI's STI policies. Turekian and Gluckman (2024, p.55) state that the evolution of science diplomacy makes the discipline central to achieving diplomatic objectives. To reflect this, the foreign policy document should be revised to incorporate science diplomacy and respond to a changing and rapidly advancing technological world.

A changing world and rapid technological advancement

Since the 2019 White Paper on STI, science diplomacy has moved from aspirational to pragmatic and transactional. Artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, space technologies, biotechnology, critical minerals and research security have become part of national strategy and national security (The Royal Society & AAAS, 2025, p.14). Scientific cooperation is no longer only about development and knowledge exchange. It is increasingly competitive and conditional, with technology transfers granted on terms that serve national interests, reshaping international scientific cooperation (Turekian & Gluckman, 2025, p.761).

Major powers' actions reflect this technological competition. The 2022 US CHIPS and Science Act funds domestic semiconductor research and manufacturing, but bars recipient companies for 10 years from expanding semiconductor manufacturing capacity in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea (Kurilla, 2024). The European Commission's 2026 European Technological Sovereignty Package aims to reduce the EU's overreliance on non-EU digital product suppliers and to build and govern its own vital technologies, data and infrastructure (European Commission, 2026). China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) emphasises self-reliance and strength in science and technology by deepening scientific research and technology development in AI, quantum technology, biotechnology and new energy, among others, to lead in achieving breakthroughs (National People's Congress, 2026). Research security now shapes science diplomacy, under the principle of “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”, as governments and researchers try to find the balance between sharing knowledge and preventing theft of sensitive information by partners that could impact national security (The Royal Society & AAAS, 2025, p.17).

South Africa's own documents already point this way. The 2019 White Paper named AI, biotechnology, critical minerals and quantum computing as “emerging fields of knowledge, technologies and materials that will shape the near future” (DSTI, 2019, p.18). The 2025 Critical Minerals and Metals Strategy sets a roadmap to use critical minerals in support of national interests (Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, 2025), and the National Security Strategy 2024-2028 emphasises the protection of technology and innovation as a pillar of national security (National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, 2025). The new science diplomacy strategy should build on these pillars and treat these technologies as strategic assets, not only opportunities. The implication for Pretoria is clear. If South Africa treats science partnerships as a research matter, it will be negotiating with countries that treat them as foreign policy. That difference is the risk, not the quality of South African science.

Conclusion

The ASDC opens on 30 November and is followed by the Science Forum South Africa, so the country's science diplomacy will be on show for a full week. South Africa meets three of the four criteria. The missing one, a science advisor within DIRCO, is the one that decides whether Pretoria negotiates as a foreign policy actor or as a research partner. No DIRCO representative is listed in the SDCfA leadership or on the ASDC advisory committee. If these do not change, South Africa risks negotiating with countries that treat science as foreign policy, and Africa's agenda will be set by others.

Recommendations: strengthening South Africa's science diplomacy

Nine recommendations directed towards DIRCO, DSTI and other stakeholders in the run-up to the inaugural Africa Science Diplomacy Conference, 30 November to 1 December 2026.

1.     Launch Science Diplomacy Cadet Programme training

A two-year accredited cadet programme to train STEM and International Relations graduates into science diplomats should be implemented jointly by DIRCO and DSTI. The programme should consist of theoretical and practical modules on a variety of subjects relevant to the development of well-rounded future South African science diplomats, followed by in-field postings in various departments and as support staff to science attachés abroad. For scientists and diplomats to work together effectively, scientists need a fundamental understanding of diplomacy, while diplomats and policymakers need a basic understanding of science. Without basic knowledge of each other's fields, there is a risk of a communication gap that will result in missed opportunities, unsuccessful initiatives and mistrust.

2.    Appoint a science advisor within DIRCO

DIRCO should appoint a science advisor to the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, beginning as a seconded or part-time post rather than a full chief advisor. The post would link DSTI, ICR, SDCfA and the science communities to DIRCO, to ensure the achievement of both foreign policy and STI objectives. The timing matters because the national science diplomacy strategy is still being drafted, and an advisory function created afterwards will be fitted to a strategy it did not help shape. Japan created the equivalent post in 2015, and South Africa already has the interdepartmental structures to support one.

3.     Strengthen universities as strategic actors in science diplomacy

Universities should support postgraduate students and researchers to contribute to the rising research output on science diplomacy. There should be investment in creating courses, modules, training, simulation exercises and capacity building on science diplomacy. Internationalisation strategies should align with national and continental science diplomacy goals, ensuring international research collaborations, student and staff mobility, and collaborative science diplomacy degree programmes with international universities.

4.    Create an African science diplomacy open-access publication

SDCfA should invest in creating an African science diplomacy open-access online publication that will commission and publish analysis, policy briefs, articles, practitioner perspectives and conference reports exploring the intersection of science, technology, foreign policy and international relations. An open-access publication removes the barrier of paywalls, ensuring that readers can easily reach rigorous analysis and insight on African science diplomacy.

5.     Co-draft the Science Diplomacy Strategy between DSTI and DIRCO

DSTI should co-draft the Science Diplomacy Strategy with DIRCO. A timeline for the development of the strategy should be established that includes civil society, research institutions, think tanks, universities and researchers. If a strategy is developed solely within DSTI, it risks promoting science interests over foreign, security and trade interests. The 2019 White Paper on STI called for strategically utilising science diplomacy to support foreign policy and STI objectives, and abandoning the ad-hoc approach. This necessitates the lead of both departments.

6.    Incorporate DIRCO representation in SDCfA structures

DSTI and the CSIR should invite DIRCO to nominate a representative to serve within the Science Diplomacy Capital for Africa. At present, no DIRCO representative is listed in the SDCfA leadership, steering committee, implementation team or emissaries. Both departments' objectives should be reflected within this flagship, which aims to augment the country's science diplomacy. The SDCfA, established in 2022, already has the capacity to accommodate such a representative.

7.     Include DIRCO on the advisory committee of the ASDC

DIRCO should be invited onto the advisory committee of the ASDC. Currently, there is no representative from DIRCO on the committee. When the advisory committee reviews proposal presentations and attendance applications, a DIRCO representative can offer international relations expertise and assess whether proposals align with strategic themes from the continent's broader geopolitical perspective.

8.    Revise the Foreign Policy White Paper

South Africa should revise its 2011 Foreign Policy White Paper to explicitly integrate science diplomacy into its foreign policy objectives. This is urgent because other states have embedded science diplomacy within their foreign ministries and policies, using it to secure national interests when forming scientific partnerships. The term was new in 2011, and the paper did not institutionalise it within DIRCO. However, science and technology were noted as an important global driver of change. This provides a starting point for a revised White Paper, which will align Pretoria with global practice and strengthen its position in an era of rapid technological disruption and geopolitical tension.

9.    Expand science attachés to strategic missions

South Africa should expand its network of science attachés beyond Belgium and Japan to missions in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, India, Brazil and the African Union. DIRCO, working with DSTI, should lead the appointments. This expansion is urgent because rising geopolitical tensions and global competition in AI, quantum, biotechnology and critical minerals are intensifying, and Pretoria risks being sidelined without representation in key capitals. By doing so, South Africa will align its science diplomacy with evolving global practice and strengthen its strategic voice.

Curtis Matiti is a Fellow at The Global Lens: Science Diplomacy in Focus and a PhD candidate in Political Studies at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, where he is a National Research Foundation doctoral scholar. His research examines how South Africa practises science diplomacy, alongside work on nuclear non-proliferation, global governance and Africa's position within it. He will be at the inaugural Africa Science Diplomacy Conference in Pretoria in November 2026.

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