The São Paulo Innovation and Science Diplomacy School – InnSciDSP – is the world’s first school devoted to both Innovation and Science Diplomacy.

Since 2019, InnSciD SP has been providing training to scientists, diplomats, and representatives of the private sector from all over the world on the rich and multidisciplinary intersection between science, technology, innovation, and foreign policy. 

It is co-organized by the Department of Political Science (DCP-USP), Institute of International Relations of the University of São Paulo (IRI-USP), and the Institute of Advanced Studies of the same university (IEA-USP).

InnSciD SP started in 2019 as part of The São Paulo School of Advanced Science (SPSAS) program, funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). At that moment, the school was presential and brought to the University of São Paulo (USP) more than 100 researchers from all regions in the world, from both developing and developed economies, to discuss advanced topics on Innovation and Science Diplomacy. The lecturers and panels comprised topics such as the Origins of Science Diplomacy, Climate Change Regime, the SESAME project, International Technology Transfer, Internet Governance and the role of S&T diasporas, among others.

In its first year, InnSciDSP’s students and lecturers crafted together the “São Paulo Framework of Innovation Diplomacy”. It represented a major milestone, as the first document to present a definition for Innovation Diplomacy and a comprehensive list practices that the novel concept entails. Within the “national-strategic” dimension, the framework lists practices such as attraction of FDI in R&D, access to foreign innovations and promotion of cross-border technology transfer. The “global cooperative” includes practices targeted towards goals like stakeholder participation in innovation networks and reinforcing the multilateral IP regime.

In 2020, forced by the physical mobility limitations imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, InnSciDSP was conducted online. Taking advantage from digital platforms, the School also organized an Open Lecture week, aiming at sharing knowledge with a broader audience to raise attention to the new obstacles to be tackled with the help of Science and Innovation Diplomacy. The second edition had over 130 students from all regions in the world and included lectures and panels on International Collaboration in Life Sciences, Internationalization of Technology Startups, Amazon 4.0 and the Global Innovation Index, among many others. Students were asked to prepare Roadmaps on Innovation Diplomacy for their respective regions, which will be published as an e-book.