Navigating complexity: Are research leaders prepared for an unpredictable future?

Four years ago, the world’s response to the COVID pandemic suggested that a new age of global science cooperation was dawning, with traditional boundaries between governments, industry, research and society being replaced by more open, inclusive models in pursuit of the common good. Fast forward to today, however, and the landscape has once again darkened as geopolitical tensions escalate, Western countries worry about leaking valuable knowledge to China and Russia, and the race to control critical and emerging technology domains intensifies.

These dynamics are obliging research and innovation (R&I) policy makers and stakeholders to confront a major issue: how to maintain a viable balance between research security, integrity and openness in increasingly turbulent times? This question has recently been addressed by the European Council, G7 science ministers and STS Forum, among others. On the other side of the Atlantic, governments appear to be taking a cautious approach. Canada has announced that it will ban scientists from federal funding if they work in critical research fields with universities and scientific organisations perceived as “risky”. Meanwhile, the US has just introduced new rules requiring universities to track the travel of foreign researchers who work in research domains deemed politically or strategically sensitive. Yet in Europe, many leading organisations – and in particular global hubs like CERN – have a long legacy of working with geopolitical rivals. As the EU prepares to begin its new five-year mandate, their experiences may offer some valuable lessons for policy-makers tasked with managing these complexities moving forward, not least the options (and trade-offs) for safeguarding scientific integrity and security while also keeping fundamental research open and collaborative.

Against this backdrop, it is therefore both timely and necessary to ask whether research leaders are prepared for what lies ahead and what the implications are for developing future leaders capable of managing these new realities. The range of factors influencing any answer are of course considerable: from cybersecurity threats and political restrictions on research cooperation, to the need for “warning systems” to protect research data, ethics and integrity against foreign influence, and the proliferation of artificial intelligence systems, to name but a few. Some recent indicators underline the need for action. In a new IPSOS-Elsevier study titled “Views from the Top”, based on interviews with over one hundred international decision-makers, 82% identified cyber security as a top priority, but only 45% felt well prepared to manage the risks. For AI governance, the respective numbers were 64% against 23%. And looking ahead, almost two-thirds of respondents believe that challenges associated with the political, technological and regulatory environment will become much greater over the next five years. Thus, beyond scholarship and seniority, research leaders in the modern world will likely require a new palette of skills, such as foresight, crisis preparedness, change management and policy awareness. And more broadly, which role can policy bodies, technology providers, scientific publishers and national funding agencies play in supporting senior leaders to advance knowledge security and integrity throughout their institutions? 

On December 3rd, Science|Business will convene a select group of senior figures and experts from across the R&I spectrum to address these topics. Above all, the high-level roundtable will develop recommendations, based on latest innovations and best practices, to ensure that the research leaders of tomorrow are fully prepared to guide their organisations forward into an unpredictable future.