Light Particles and Soft Power: SESAME Hosts Regional Science Talks

On 28 October, the Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East—the regional research facility in Jordan known as SESAME—hosts a dedicated symposium on science diplomacy. The meeting focuses on how collaborative scientific research can sustain international dialogue, generate trust, and deepen working ties between the European Union and partner nations.

When standard diplomatic channels run cold, technical collaboration frequently remains open. Shared laboratories and advanced instruments offer a rare neutral ground where governments with fraught political relationships still manage to coordinate. For the wider public, science diplomacy serves as an unheralded stabiliser: keeping channels open through physics when political dialogue is otherwise stalled.

In the Brussels lexicon, "science diplomacy" translates roughly to foreign policy conducted through research grants and shared equipment. The European Union has long favoured joint scientific projects as soft power in its purest form—bringing disparate partners around the table by focusing on data protocols and particle beams rather than competing geopolitical red lines.

Delegates at the SESAME facility will conclude the symposium by reviewing practical avenues for joint research. Turning those discussions into durable programmes will ultimately rely on sustained institutional backing and whether regional capitals remain willing to protect laboratory work from wider diplomatic friction.