Hear from founders and key contributors to a bottom-up science diplomacy initiative promoting research and policy dialogues across divides

This is a hybrid event, with both in-person (Cornwallis East 128A, University of Kent Canterbury Campus) and online (Zoom) participation available.

BioGovernance Commons began in 2021 as a bottom-up science diplomacy experiment, initiated by a group of academics in response to escalating geopolitical tensions and the narrowing of channels for scientific exchange and policy dialogue during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially focused on UK–US–China relations, the initiative has since drawn support and participation from colleagues across Europe, South Asia and Southeast Asia.

At its heart, BioGovernance Commons approaches ‘commoning’ both as an intellectual concept and as a socio-political practice. Rather than taking the existence of a ‘science commons’ or China's state vision of a ‘Community of Common Destiny’ for granted, it begins with a recognition of the fragility of mutual understanding, trust, respect and goodwill. These are neither inevitable outcomes of scientific collaboration nor foundations upon which international cooperation can simply rely. Instead, they must be actively cultivated, negotiated and sustained through careful, deliberative engagement across differences.

Over the years, the initiative has evolved into a trusted platform for exchanges across geopolitical and disciplinary divides, bringing together a growing community of researchers and professionals committed to keeping dialogue open, including where disagreements persist.

Yet the conditions that gave rise to BioGovernance Commons have hardly diminished. In contrast to Kant's vision of ‘perpetual peace’, we appear to inhabit an age of ‘perpetual crisis’. This is not simply a succession of geopolitical, economic or environmental emergencies, but a condition in which the very systems and pursuits intended to secure prosperity, stability and progress can simultaneously reproduce fragmentation, inequality, competition and mistrust. Crises are not merely external disruptions to international cooperation; they can also emerge from the ways cooperation, development and influence are themselves organised.

What, then, can commoning realistically achieve under such conditions? How might we sustain meaningful cooperation without assuming consensus, overlooking structural inequalities or reducing dialogue to a diplomatic gesture? And how can commoning remain a critical and reflexive practice, extending beyond self-selecting circles of cooperation to engage meaningfully with the complexities of the wider world?

Marking the publication of BioGovernance Commons and China's Role in Global Risk Governance (Springer Nature, 2026), this event brings together the initiative's founders and key contributors to reflect on the value, limits and challenges of commoning in shaping the future of global science governance. It invites a critical discussion of what it takes to sustain cooperation across differences, and how scientific collaboration might contribute to the common good without taking that common good, or the conditions for achieving it, for granted.

Panellists

Kathleen Vogel, Arizona State University, USA | Co-founder of BioGovernance Commons and expert in biosecurity and science policy

Haidan Chen, Peking University, China | Expert in bioethics and the governance of emerging biomedical technologies

Simona Novaretti, University of Turin, Italy | Expert in comparative Chinese law and author of Law and Bioethics: The Beginning of Life in China

Chair

Joy Y. Zhang, University of Kent, UK | Co-founder of BioGovernance Commons

Find out more about the book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-32198-5

Description supplied by the event organiser.