INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA

Prof. Paul Arthur Berkman is an explorer and visionary with lifelong learning to apply, train and refine science diplomacy as an holistic (international, interdisciplinary and inclusive) process, involving informed decisionmaking to balance national interests and common interests for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.  Paul triangulates education (starting as a Visiting Professor at the age of 23), research (winter SCUBA diving in Antarctica with diverse and ongoing discoveries across the Earth) and leadership (building common interests among allies and adversaries alike to promote peace, as with the first formal dialogue between NATO and Russia regarding Arctic security).  He is Founding Director of the Science Diplomacy Center at Tufts University and serves as Associated Fellow with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).  For his contributions to elevate humanity, Prof. Berkman has been honoured with national and international awards.  Paul is happily married with two daughters.

I am committed to help balance between national interests and common interests for our shared survival on Earth.  I am proposing a project with local-global scalability, converging the UN and Boston to awaken an INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA across our globally-interconnected civilization (FIGURE 1).  We are at a tipping point with our global pandemic, with 400% larger human population than during the Spanish Flu one century ago.  This project will elevate humanity across generations by empowering lifelong learning capacities to generate informed decisions (operating short-term to long-term) in the lives of every person and with institutions, involving governance mechanisms and built infrastructure as well as their coupling to achieve progress with sustainability, guided by the holistic pedagogy of the  Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for our common future.

FIGURE 1: Globally-interconnected civilization with human-population size and atmospheric-CO2 concentrations accelerating over decades-centuries on Earth.  From Berkman et al. (2020).

This INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA project will leverage the opportunity to operate short-term to long-term through the global inflection point in the COVID-19 pandemic (FIGURE 2), like Bretton Woods and the UN Charter conferences before WWII ended.  Exponential change is impacting humankind now over months-years, faster than with high-technology over years-decades or with our Earth system over decades-centuries (FIGURE 1).  The scales of change to facilitate informed decisionmaking are across our globally-interconnected civilization with 8 billion voices this decade, knowing there are those among us who will be living next century.  Local-global scalability will be facilitated top-down with UNITAR and bottom-up with the Boston innovation ecosystem, involving the Science & Technology Diplomatic Circle (S&TDC) of Boston with its diplomatic missions from 50+ nations in a model city other than a national capital.  This project will train world leaders with common-interest building and holistic-integration skills to make informed decisions, operating with humanity across a 'continuum of urgencies' that applies to peoples, nations and our world.

FIGURE 2: Generic 'continuum of urgencies' in view of exponential changes and instabilities that are immediate through an inflection point to address sustainability across diverse time scales (month-years, years-decades and decades-centuries). From Berkman (in press).

Informed decisionmaking is the engine of science diplomacy as an holistic process with skills, methods and theory to apply, train and refine for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.   The INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA project involves UNITAR in Geneva partnering with Swissnex Boston to administrate an Executive Summer Programme on Science Diplomacy and Technology, starting in 2021.  I am coordinating this holistic training programme in the Boston innovation ecosystem, collaborating with renown educators from Tufts University, MIT, UMass Boston and Boston University along with the S&TDC (founded 2013 by Swissnex).  Self-selected world leaders will be trained with common-interest building and holistic-integration skills to create synergies between research and action (FIGURE 3) before through after the global inflection point of our global pandemic.  Applying the seventeen SDG, as a gift to humanity, this training will enhance local-global capacities to generate informed decisions – not good or bad decisions; not right or wrong decisions; but decisions that optimize the available data in view of the underlying questions inclusively short-term to long-term.  

FIGURE 3: Informed decisionmaking pyramid, involving individuals as observers and participants across the data-evidence interface to produce informed decisions with common-interest building.  From Berkman et al. (2017).

The INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA project is designed to serve our global community on a planetary scale (FIGURE 1) with vision across generations, which is the essence of sustainability, balancing societal well-being, environmental protection and economic prosperity for the benefit of all on Earth as reflected by the SDG.  This holistic project recognizes need for informed decisionmaking, especially when leading nations abandon essential international institutions with ‘uninformed’ decisions motivated by short-term considerations, as illustrated with the World Health Organization.  This project also recognizes the need for compassion when injustices are clearly evident, as resurfaced with ‘Black Lives Matter’, angering for fairness and civil rights across the world.  With UNITAR and the Boston innovation ecosystem, this project is engaging contributions across the subnational-national-international spectrum of jurisdictions (FIGURE 4) to help frame foundational questions (FIGURE 3) that will enhance common-interest building to produce informed decision before through after the inflection point in our global pandemic (FIGURE 2).   These questions extend from our common interest in survival, revealed with the COVID-19 pandemic as the “most challenging crisis we have faced since the Second World War” (as noted by the UN Secretary-General).  

FIGURE 4: Jurisdictional spectrum in view of global urbanization.  From Berkman (2019). 

The INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA project will elevate understanding that science inclusively is the ‘study of change,’ empowering all with inquiry skills, methods and theory for lifelong learning to operate short-term to long-term.  Informed decisionmaking is scalable to each of us at a personal level, as symbolized when we drive a car deciding about the immediate urgencies to the left and right while maneuvering in view of future urgencies with red lights ahead and circumstances to consider in the rear.  This project will be transformational without advocacy, introducing options to use or ignore explicitly, respecting each person as a decisionmaker.

The INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA is lifetime journey that began with a sense of global responsibility from wintering for a year in Antarctica when I was 22 in 1981, which was a profound experience, looking at our world from a great distance.  Continuous darkness for seventy days surrounded by spectacular twilight was poetry for the imagination.  In addition to amazing SCUBA diving research under ice, Antarctica was where the United States and Soviet Union were cooperating throughout the cold war.  Why?  Despite the geopolitics isolating them in every other sphere – except outer space – what enabled these superpower adversaries to create the first nuclear arms agreement with the 1959 Antarctic Treaty in “the interests of science and the progress of all mankind… forever”?  Answers to these questions enabled me to teach a course on Antarctic science and policy in 1982 as a Visiting Professor at UCLA, revealing my quest to promote cooperation and prevent conflict for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.  With hope and inspiration – continuously accelerating with rigor, creativity and wondrous opportunities involving friends around the world, I revealed the theory of informed decisionmaking that is now being shared with humanity through UNITAR.

My mother escaped Nazi Germany in 1938.  From early childhood, I have had a sense of responsibility to stand strong against injustices.  This passion was reinforced during my year in Antarctica in 1981, interrupted from a great distance – remembering my grandmother crying when the postman told her about President Kennedy in 1963, angered by the attempted assassination of President Reagan – when I understood “one cannot escape the injustices of mankind.”  What can we do as individuals to improve our world with billions of humans?   Travelling to all seven continents before turning thirty in more than fifty nations since, living in foreign lands for years, I cherish the cultural diversity and beauties of our world.  Every day is motivation to live with passion, creating synergies with education, research and leadership for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.   With persistence, I have seen progress continuously over decades, leading to the rare transformational moment now with our global pandemic – when personal survival again is a common interest at local-global levels, but in the absence of “world” war - awakening an opportunity with scalable architecture to build an INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA of peace for the future of humanity.

Successful implementation of the INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA project requires the vision and demonstrated capacities to operate short-term to long-term on a global scale (understanding humanity across the accordion of time), applying holistic skills to build common interests among allies and adversaries alike along with the strength of character to develop trust in a local-global process that will awaken across generations.  A person with such contributions would be a hero for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.  Across my lifetime, I have been triangulating education, research and leadership as synergistic elements with lifelong learning that starts with questions, leading to the theory, skills and methods of informed decisionmaking.  I have been a teacher, well before UCLA, arriving now with UNITAR and as advisor to diplomatic schools of foreign ministries.  With childhood curiosity and passion to build a peaceful world, my research has been across the spectrum of basic-applied science with holistic integration, involving peer-reviewed and invited publications in dozens of different journals, including Science and Nature; books and a series on Informed Decisionmaking for Sustainability; along with diverse public communications on television, radio and print, including the NY Times.  Global leadership is illustrated in the following sections.  I see a path to transform our common interest in survival during our pandemic currently, before the global inflection point through after, into a world enlightened by informed decisionmaking.  With the inspiration of Jules Verne and science fiction becoming reality – if we think it, we can build it!!

The Antarctic Treaty Summit involved pulling ‘rabbits out of a hat’ constantly as its chair, celebrating the first fifty years of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty hosted at the Smithsonian Institution for three days around the 1 December 2009 anniversary.  This holistic event involved keynotes from HE Ban Ki-moon and HSH Prince Albert II along with dozens of other luminaries, supported by dozens of organizations around the world with participants from more than thirty nations – steered with a high-level board of ten advisors from seven nations with international and national government officials as well as natural and social scientists along with representatives of non-governmental organizations.  I produced a Congressional Resolution adopted with unanimous consent in both the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate; invited papers in high-profile journals; outreach with more than 500,000 website hits on the Antarctic Treaty signature day; and the first book on Science Diplomacy.  Logistic hurdles were ever-present: all taken in stride with collaboration of friends and support of family.  My planning for all these activities began six years earlier; twenty years after imagining a global dialogue to reveal lessons about continuous cold-war cooperation between the US and USSR in Antarctica.

Leadership is demonstrated best when people are inspired.  In 2010 – applying lessons from the Antarctic Treaty Summit – as Head of the Arctic Ocean Geopolitics Programme at the University of Cambridge, I proposed, co-directed and chaired the first formal dialogue between NATO and Russia regarding security in the Arctic Ocean.   This breakthrough with common-interest building between global adversaries was catalyzed with the Head of the International Law Programme at MGIMO University, leading to approval by the full NATO-Russia Council.  The two-day dialogue involved all eight Arctic states and nine other nations at the level of ambassadors with four Russian ministries; Indigenous peoples organizations; energy companies; environmental organizations; and NATO Parliamentary Assembly; along with academia.  The resulting book has nearly 70,000 downloads, leading to invitations from the: NATO Maritime Command for me to address heads of forty navies in Whitehall, before two rows of fifty admirals in dress blues facing each other; President of the Russian Federation to contribute in five Arctic meetings he hosted through 2019; and the US Secretary of State Science and Technology Advisor to co-convene the 1st and 2nd International Dialogues on Science and Technology Advice in Foreign Ministries – revealing skills of informed decisionmaking.

The INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA project will empower individuals as both observers and participants in the development of governance mechanisms and built infrastructure for sustainability by introducing options (without advocacy), which can be used or ignored explicitly (FIGURE 3). Options are distinct from recommendations that convey real or perceived agendas that introduce political dynamics, respecting the decisionmakers as well as their institutions to build common interests with holistic integration.  Without being prescriptive, defining an ‘informed decision’ introduces the potential for iteration and the capacity to avoid jargon, which happens when terms are applied without definition. An advantage of informed decisions also is the framework to identify and even correct ‘uninformed’ decisions that emerge when decisions operate long-term of short-term only, as happens with politics involving conflicts and paralysis among competing agendas for momentary benefit.  There also is innovation by recognizing decisions include two generalized arenas that require coupling to achieve progress with sustainability: 

• governance mechanisms (laws, agreements and policies as well as regulatory strategies, including insurance, at diverse jurisdictional levels).  
• built infrastructure (fixed, mobile and other assets, including communication, observing, information and other systems that require technology plus investment).

Importantly, there is hope with informed decisionmaking, appreciating there those among us who will be living next century with capacities to  operate short-term to long-term.  The overall innovation is reflected by the skills, methods and theory of informed decisionmaking that I am now training at the level of UNITAR and foreign ministries for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.  

Change includes the past, present and the future with context provided by looking across time rather than at the moment, as observed in 2016 during the 1st International Dialogue on Science and Technology Advice in Foreign Ministries with diplomats from nearly two dozen foreign ministries. An outcome of the inclusive international dialogue in 2016 was the concept of informed decisions.   With governments, peoples and our world, informed decisions operate short-term to long-term (FIGURE 5) from:

• Security Time Scales: mitigating risks of political, economic, cultural and environmental instabilities that are immediate; to 
• Sustainability Time Scales: balancing economic prosperity, environmental protection and societal well-being across generations.  

The theory of informed decisionmaking – that informed decisions are scalable from the individual to the world – was introduced in Science in 2017, applying the 'Arctic Science Agreement' as an holistic example with ongoing elaboration through the new book series on Informed Decisionmaking for Sustainability.  To bridge the diverse interests with research and action (FIGURE 3), science opens doors to be holistic, as reflected by the 2019 merger of the International Council of Science and International Social Sciences Council to become the International Science Council: "advancing science as a global public good."  But, what is science?   Natural sciences and social sciences as well as Indigenous knowledge all involve rigorous training with inquiry skills to characterize patterns and trends that become the bases for decisions. The challenge to be inclusive also exists across the disciplines that contribute to decisionmaking with different knowledge systems enabling individuals, cultures and governments to be resilient in the face of change. For the purposes of science diplomacy and its engine of informed decisionmaking - broadly speaking with international and interdisciplinary inclusion of all these knowledge systems - science is the ‘study of change’ (symbolized with triangulation by the Greek letter delta ∆, as in mathematics).  

FIGURE 5: Theory of Informed Decisionmaking (operating across a 'continuum urgencies') involves the proposition that informed decisions are scalable, with application from an individual (as driving a car - see earlier) to the world (FIGURES 1-3).  From Berkman (in press).

Currently, I am training several hundred leaders and diplomats from dozens of nations with UNITAR, as illustrated in view of our global pandemic.  For the INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA project, fifty self-selected world leaders are anticipated to be directly engaged in the UNITAR training programme in the Boston innovation ecosystem within one year.   Assuming that each world leader touches 1000 people through their various networks and institutions, then their involvement would cascade skills, methods and theory of informed decisionmaking across 50,000 people in one year.   The training in the Boston innovation ecosystem is designed to serve as a template for a network of such cities with world-leading academic institutions, multinational business and international presence of diplomatic missions (in subnational jurisdictions that may be different that national capital.  If the UNITAR training is extended just to the five cities currently with Science and Technology Diplomatic Circles (S&TDC) and each city trains fifty self-selected world leaders each year – then at the end of five years, over 1 million people would have been impacted.  Lifelong-learning synergies will emerge at the levels of leadership through professions and research through universities.  Most importantly, these mature levels of life experience will translate into basic education through elementary and secondary schools - where informed decisionmaking (as a basic skill) will complement reading, writing and arithmetic that are taught in every language in every nation - providing the sufficiency for lifelong learning in our digital world where information is effectively infinite and instantaneous. 

The impact goals in the next year and next five years are to continue the global acceleration that began with informed decisionmaking as the engine of science diplomacy in 2016, starting with the 1st International Dialogue on Science and Technology Advice in Foreign Ministries that I co-convened with two dozen foreign ministries in Vienna.  That 2016 meeting has influenced the development of the Foreign Ministries Science and Technology Advice Network (FMSTAN) and International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA) as well as other advisory networks associated with the International Science Council (ISC), as represented during the COVID-19 pandemic with the Committee on Data (CODATA).  With the additional collaboration of UNITAR and foreign ministries, as with the Canadian Foreign Service Institute (CFSI) - this project already is contributing at a global scale.   However, to set expectations correctly, while progress is accelerating globally with science diplomacy and its engine of informed decisionmaking, it will take generations to transform our world into an INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA.   The UNITAR programme in Boston is conceived as a next phase to triangulate education, research and leadership with informed decisionmaking - opening the doors to cascade the associated skills, methods and theory for lifelong learning, ultimately into elementary and secondary schools.  The goal in Year 1 is simply to run a successful training program with self-selected world leaders in the Boston innovation ecosystem, building toward an impacts across millions of people onward in the following five years.

The primary barrier had been the ever-accelerating pace of communication with diminishing time to listen and think about messages in our digital world with billions of voices speaking to each other via social media.  Now, when our world has terrible fever and individuals are sequestered in their safe places, there is an opportunity for all of us to think about our common interest to survive.  Raising the questions to facilitate dialogues among allies and adversaries alike (FIGURE 3), rather than sharing answers faster and louder without inclusion, is a primary barrier.  How do we build questions of common concern together that will reveal the holistic methods to answer them, turning data into evidence and options (without advocacy) to generate informed decisions?  This is the journey and there is progress with hope as well as inspiration to transform our global pandemic into an opportunity for humanity.  The other key barrier is time to take advantage of this rare opportunity before the inflection point in our global pandemic (FIGURE 4), after which the tendency will be to go back to 'business as usual,' when compassion will become less urgent.  Overcoming this barriers will herald the INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.

Two existential barriers are identified above:  

1.  Raising the questions to facilitate dialogues among allies and adversaries alike (FIGURE 3), rather than sharing answers faster and louder without inclusion, is a primary barrier. 

2.  The other key barrier is time to take advantage of this rare opportunity before the inflection point in our global pandemic (FIGURE 4), after which the tendency will be to go back to 'business as usual,' when compassion will become less urgent.

My experience is persistence is required to make progress, and this will continue to be essential with both barriers.  It also is helpful to reframe barriers (which seems negative) as hurdles in a more hopeful manner.  Significant progress with the first hurdle has been made simply by conceptualizing "holistic" as a magical puzzle piece with its international, interdisciplinary and inclusive shape.  The holistic process of science diplomacy is informed decisionmaking, with transformations happening as individuals learn to think short-term to long-term, bridging conflict resolution and common-interest building (FIGURE 5).  There are examples of operating before through after an inflection, prominently illustrated by the United Nations, before the end of WWII.  For the first hurdle, the theory, methods and skills of informed decisionmaking are available to turn our global pandemic into an opportunity for the benefit of all on Earth across generations to awaken an INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA.  The second hurdle is a race, when holistic partnerships are essential to accelerate the likelihood of success with our global opportunity.  

1. Arctic research:
   1. Funding from national science agencies: Canada, China, France, Norway, Russian Federation and United States 
   2. National Science Foundation - Arctic Data Center (Advisory Board member)
   3. Recent edited/authored books: 
      1. Publisher: Springer
      2. Editors : Tufts, UC Santa Barbara, former US Ambassador,  Arctic Frontiers (Norway), MGIMO University (Russia)
      3. Authors: dozens of organizations
         1. Baseline of Russian Arctic Laws (2019)
         2. Informed Decisionmaking for Sustainability. Volume 1. Governing Arctic Seas: Regional Lessons from the Bering Strait and Barents Sea (2020)
         3. Informed Decisionmaking for Sustainability. Volume 2. Building Common Interests in the Arctic Ocean with Global Inclusion (in progress)
   4. International science organizations
      1. UArctic (coordinator Science Diplomacy Thematic Network across 200+ institutions)
      2. IASC (co-authorships)
      3. IIASA  (co-authorships)
   5. Arctic Council (collaboration across working groups)
   6. Dozens of universities internationally
2. Arctic Council (collaboration across working groups)
3. International Science Council
   1. CODATA (Data Policy Committee member)
   2. INGSA (collaborator)
   3. others 
4. Foreign Ministries
   1. Diplomatic School of Armenia (expert / training)
   2. Canadian Foreign Service Institute (External Advisory Board member)
   3. Indonesian Center for Education and Training (expert / training)
   4. Others:
      1. Dozens represented by co-authors in 2017 and 2018 (ongoing dialogues)
      2. S&TDC (below)
5. United Nations
   1. UNITAR (Associated Fellow)
   2. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation ("open science" expert)
6. Boston Innovation Ecosystem 
   1. Universities (see text)
   2. S&TDC (Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Quebec, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom consulates)  
   3. State of Massachusetts (Governor's office)
   4. City of Boston (Mayor's office)
7. Science Diplomacy
   1. S4D4C (European Commission project - Advisory Board)
   2. InsSciDE (European Commission project - collaborator) 
   3. Other projects internationally
8. EvREsearch LTD (CEO since 1999)
9. Foundation for the Good Governance of International Spaces (Chair)

The business model is to provide a unique UNITAR training programme in the Boston innovation system for fifty self-selected world leaders each year - training common-interest building and informed decisionmaking skills for the benefit of all on Earth across generations -  generating revenues to support and grow this service with additional sources of support will emerge with accelerating knowledge co-production.  Incentives for world leaders to pay for their training in this programme reflects the global caliber of the unique group of renown educators from premier universities in the Boston innovation ecosystem, synergized with the cachet and capacities of UNITAR.  Importantly, world leaders will be drawn to this training programme because it will enhance their capacities to operate short-term to long-term through the inflection point in our global pandemic (FIGURE 4) for the benefit of their constituencies.  Marketing and promotion will be facilitated by all of the educators as well as their institutions, building on capacities of UNITAR as a global distribution channel for world-class training.  Moreover, all of the participants have well-established channels to patrons who support meritorious activities that elevate humanity.

The path to financial sustainability starts with the allocation of funding already from UNITAR to 'prime the pump' this year to plan for the training programme in Summer 2021 with local administration and fiscal oversight through Swissnex Boston.  Costs have been estimated on a per participant basis and minimum cost-recovery level has been established, which will be achieved by combination of revenues from the participants and patronage from institutions, including the diplomatic missions among the S&TDC Boston that will cover costs for their nationals.  Timing of the summer training programmes also will dovetail with relevant events at the United Nations in New York, where individuals would have easy access to Boston.   After Year 1, beyond the basic cost recovery for UNITAR (which is covering the initial risk, there will be revenue sharing among the institutions to further incentive their active collaboration to develop a sustainable programme.            

This project involves international and national government organizations with funding that has been allocated and will be received through revenues or other sources.  Simply:

UNITAR (has awarded planning grant); and 

Swissnex Boston (will administrate funds).

The Elevate Prize is an example of creative engagement and collaboration to raise complementary funding that will enhance capacities with the INFORMED DECISIONMAKING ERA project.

$600,000

1. The Elevate Prize is an opportunity to facilitate collaboration and build synergies with other heroes who are seeking to elevate understanding of and between people with common-interest at local-global levels in view of the SDG, balancing environmental protection, economic prosperity and societal well-being across generations.   
2. Assistance from experts associated with the Elevate Prize will provide additional capacities to accelerate the local-global applications of informed decisionmaking before the global inflection point (FIGURE 4) in the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to address the second existential hurdle / barrier that was identified earlier.  In particular, additional financial capacities as well as marketing, media and exposure from the Elevate Prize will aid the self-selected world leaders to disseminate informed decisionmaking across their constituencies and networks. 
3. The Elevate Prize could assist by helping to open doors that would cascade the UNITAR programme into elementary and secondary schools, further expanding the opportunities to triangulate education, research and leadership with informed decisionmaking for lifelong learning.

Other:

In addition to collaboration with (1) funding and revenue models and (2) marketing, media and exposure - the Elevate Prize will provide capacity to produce a Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) to train theory, methods and skills of informed decisionmaking along with science diplomacy, involving the following steps: 

Step 1: Map the learning journey

Step 2: Produce the video elements

Step 3: Post‐production and Animation

Step 4: Assigned readings and short multiple choice tests

Step 5: Look and Feel (design specifications), 

Step 6: Adding the course to a relevant platform (like edX or MITX)

Step 7: Development of online (video) trailer and advertising material

The MOOC will build on the content, organization and experience of the  UNITAR training programme in Boston, capturing video clips with world leaders to offer scalable online training to audiences worldwide as a powerful avenue for local-global dissemination.