Science Diplomacy in the Implementation by States of the Concept of “Soft Power”

The article considers the forms of development of the concept of public diplomacy, which has become both an effective mechanism for promoting the national interests of states and can be considered as a criterion for stratifying countries by the level of development. It is determined that the high intellectual intensity of scientific and diplomatic activities is the common characteristic that led to their combination at a certain historical stage in the form of science diplomacy as a form of combining the activities of the state and management of national intellectual capital, and which is classified as a leading mechanism for the transmission of soft power by states. The authors demonstrate the relationship between the level of economic development, the volume of expenditures and the effectiveness of efforts to implement the instruments of science diplomacy, the theoretical discourse on which is developing in three key functional dimensions (science in diplomacy, diplomacy for science, and science for diplomacy). It is outlined that the institutionalisation of science diplomacy opens up the possibility of targeted activities to manage the science diplomacy of its actors, as well as to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of this activity. The article summarises the dominant formats of science diplomacy with a focus on the peculiarities of international academic and scientific exchanges, government programmes, international academic mobility, and emergent science and education diplomacy (in the global online education market, world-class universities, international teams of collaborators). The newest institutional forms of competitive interaction between the subjects of science diplomacy are identified, which include platforms for professional cooperation of scientific attaches of different states, scientific, diplomatic and diaspora networks, as well as the institute of technological ambassadors. It is proposed to consider the dominant and newest formats of science diplomacy, as well as joint research infrastructure and practices of hybrid combination of mechanisms and instruments of science diplomacy by states as components of the development of a global model of the international economic order. The authors suggest that developing countries should focus on using the potential of non-institutionalised science diplomats to promote their national interests. It is concluded that the economic potential of science and its international nature are actively manifested in the use of various institutional forms of international academic entrepreneurship and competitive interaction, which are developed and most actively sought to be used by those countries that invest most in research. The article identifies such research subjects as climate diplomacy, food diplomacy and other types of public diplomacy as promising, the development of which is associated with the intensification of research efforts to solve global problems.