Science Diplomacy in the EU-AU Energy Partnerships - A Case Study on LEAP-RE

Interlinkages between science and diplomacy increasingly deepened in the last decades, making Science Diplomacy a strategic field of research and practice. In this regard, the European Union launched several initiatives that paved the way for a new science-diplomacy paradigm. Such initiatives may be broadly categorized into those aimed at exploring science diplomacy as a research field and those contributing to the consolidation of the EU vision and strategy. Among the latter category, the Long-Term Joint European Union - African Union Research and Innovation Partnership on Renewable Energy (LEAP-RE) stands out. In this article, we show how the Science Diplomacy concept can be applied to the LEAP-RE program, as an example of operationalization of the Science Diplomacy concept in multilateral projects.