Overview of the event
The pre-event workshops on 26 January and the “Muscat Global Knowledge Dialogue” on 27 – 28 January are open to all participants, including ISC Members, Fellows and invited guests. The General Assembly days on 29 – 30 January are closed meetings for ISC Member delegates and ISC Fellows only. If you wish to attend the General Assembly days as observer, please contact [email protected]. ISC Members are invited and encouraged to attend all parts of the event (26 – 30 January).
View the outline agenda of the event
During the Members’ Fora (29 January, 9:00–10:45), ISC Member representatives will meet with other Member delegates from within their membership category.
A free sightseeing tour is offered to all delegates on 31 January.
The speakers will be announced as soon as possible.
Sunday, 26 January
Pre-event workshops
A) 14:00 – 17:30 – Freedom and Responsibility in Science
Coordinator: Vivi Stavrou
This workshop, hosted by the ISC’s Committee for Freedom and Responsibility in Science (CFRS), will bring ISC Members together to address issues related to the free and responsible practice of science. Through roundtable and interactive discussions, the workshop will identify Members’ priority concerns and explore how the ISC can support and promote the free, ethical and equitable conduct of science throughout the region and globally.
B) 14:00 – 17:00 – Science is social: increasing the role and visibility of the social sciences in sustainable development policy and practice
Coordinator: Megha Sud
This workshop will explore how ISC can help strengthen the role social sciences play in the current policy landscape at national and multilateral levels and how members can collaborate, exchange ideas and lessons in this area.
C) 14:00 – 17:00 – Leveraging the ISC membership to strengthen science advice to policy
Coordinator: Anne-Sophie Stevance
With a focus on case studies and practitioners’ insights, this session will provide a forum for members to share their experience of working at the science-policy interface and strategize on opportunities to strengthen scientific advice to policy-makers from the national to the global levels.
D) 14:00 – 17:00 – Data policy and skills in a rapidly changing world
Coordinator: Vanessa McBride
Open science is facing a major test with the emergence of generative AI, placing greater stress on the principles of transparency and reproducibility. What are the current and emerging policy and technical responses? With greater emphasis needed on data quality, what are the skills required of scientists and data specialists? In this session ISC members will be invited to discuss the challenges, policy responses and explore how they can collaborate on practical responses, including skills development with Early Career Researchers.
E) 09:00 – 17:00 – Workshop on Artificial Intelligence (by invitation only)
Coordinator: Dureen Samandar Eweis
Monday, 27 January
Muscat Global Knowledge Dialogue (day 1)
08:00 – 09:30: Registration
09:30 – 11:00: Opening
Coordinator: Vanessa McBride
11:00 – 11:30: Break
11:30 – 13:00: Plenary session
“Rethinking international science collaboration in today’s world”
Coordinator: Megha Sud
13:00 – 14:30: Lunch
14:30 – 16:00: Parallel sessions
A) Transforming science: open science, research assessment, science publishing
Coordinators: Megha Sud and Carolina Santacruz
Science systems are in need of urgent reform to enhance transparency, efficiency, inclusion and integrity. This session will explore key priorities and actions towards this in the areas of open science, research assessments and publishing.
B) Ocean science for sustainability
Coordinators: Petra Lundgren and Anda Popovici
The session aims to highlight science-based key messages and latest solutions from the ISC community to accelerate SDG 14 implementation. It will feature a diverse panel of experts and interactive discussions with the ISC membership and affiliated bodies that will seek to inform deliberations on global ocean sustainability at the 2025 UN Ocean Conference.
C) The changing context for science diplomacy
Coordinator: Anne-Sophie Stevance
The session will reflect on the changing context for science diplomacy and launch a discussion paper on the role of the ISC in science diplomacy.
16:00 – 16:30: Break
16:30 – 17:30: Plenary session
Announcement of the pilot science missions for sustainability
Coordinator: Megha Sud
The selected Pilot Science Missions for Sustainability will be announced, with reflection on the urgent need to transform how we perform and fund science for sustainability.
17:30 – 18:30: Reception
Tuesday, 28 January
Muscat Global Knowledge Dialogue (day 2)
09:00 – 10:30: Plenary session
“Emerging technologies and the evolution of science”
Coordinators: Zhenya Tsoy and Dureen Samandar Eweis
Unpack the complex relationship between emerging technologies and science systems, where new opportunities coexist with critical ethical concerns.
10:30 – 11:00: Break
11:00 – 12:30: Parallel sessions
A) Artificial intelligence and its impact on science systems
Coordinator: Dureen Samandar Eweis
Exploring how AI is transforming science, its vast potential, and the challenges it poses to scientific integrity.
B) The Decade of Science for Sustainability: The post-2030 agenda
Coordinator: Vanessa McBride
Exploring how ISC Members will contribute to the Decade, and how it has the potential to shape our thinking and goals around the role of science in future sustainability agendas.
C) From Barriers to Breakthroughs: Shaping the Future of Gender Equality in Science
Coordinator: Léa Nacache
Join an open discussion on advancing the representation of women scientists in scientific organizations. In this session, we will review past recommendations and present the ISC-IAP-SCGES 2025 initiative. The session will also showcase successful partner-driven efforts and provide a platform for interested Members to share insights and shape the project’s direction, including feedback on a systematic monitoring and evaluation process to increase the participation of women scientists, particularly in leadership roles.
12:30 – 14:00: Lunch
14:00 – 15:30: Parallel sessions
A) Science education for our future – building capacity for global challenges
Coordinator: Sarah Moore
Exploring what the ISC and other stakeholders in the science system – science funders, policy makers, universities, and scientists – can do to promote a shift in the institutional environment and in higher-level education and training, to equip future scientists globally with the necessary skills to tackle urgent and highly complex societal issues.
B) Polar science and the International Polar Year
Coordinators: Morgan Seag & James Waddell
Explore how the International Polar Year (IPY) 2032-33 will reshape global scientific collaboration in the face of rapid climate and societal changes. This session will offer key insights into how polar science is addressing real-world challenges through interdisciplinary, cross-regional research. Participants will gain an understanding of how the IPY model can enhance the co-production of knowledge, drive actionable solutions, and set a blueprint for future international scientific cooperation to tackle global issues beyond the polar regions.
C) Social cohesion and inequality
Coordinator: Megha Sud
This session will reflect on the need to focus on inequality as a central challenge of our times, look at the current state of inequality research including gaps that need attention for science to play an effective role in addressing this global concern.
15:30 – 16:00: Break
16:00 – 17:30: Closing plenary
“Beyond borders: Science, public trust & multilateral policy”
Coordinator: Anne-Sophie Stevance and Vivi Stavrou
The closing plenary session will debate science as a universal endeavour can be positive force to bridge across divides and foster trust and collective action on shared global challenges and set the scene for the ISC’s work in the years to come.
18:30 – 21:30: Gala dinner
Wednesday, 29 January
General Assembly day 1
09:00 – 10:45: ISC Members’ Fora
Parallel meetings of Member delegates withing their membership category (Category 1, 2, 3 and 4) with self-determined agendas.
Coordinator: Anne Thieme
Category 1 Members Forum
- Christoph Sorger, Secretary General, International Mathematical Union
- Edoardo Costantini, President, International Union of Soil Sciences
- Ehud Keinan, President, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
- Silvina Ponce Dawson, President, International Union of Pure and Applied Physics
Input to the agenda of the Category 1 Members Forum is welcome by all category 1 Member delegates by 13 December. Please send your input to Ehud Keinan.
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Category 2 Members Forum
Co-Chairs
- Ekanem Braide, President, The Nigerian Academy of Science
- Marta Farsang, Director of International Relations, National Research Council Canada
- Mark Wuddivira, President, Caribbean Academy of Sciences
Input to the agenda of the Category 2 Members Forum is welcome by all category 2 Member delegates. Please send your input to Marta Farsang.
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Category 3 Members Forum
Co-Chairs
- Gian Maria Greco, Chair, Marie Curie Alumni Association
- Sushil Kumar, Director of Research at the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, University of the South Pacific
- Yonglong Lu, President, Pacific Science Association/Past President, Scientific Committee of Problems of the Environment
Input to the agenda of the Category 3 Members Forum is welcome by all category 3 Member delegates by 13 December. Please send your input to Gian Maria Greco.
09:00 – 13:00: Internal meeting of the ISC Affiliated Bodies (category 4 Members)
Coordinator: Vanessa McBride
10:45 – 11:15: Break
11:15 – 13:00: Open programme
ISC Members may propose and self-organize meetings.
1. Latin America and the Caribbean Members Meeting
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2. Rethinking Higher Education and Research Excellence in Africa for Impact
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3. Union Membership Issues: Retention, recruitment and geographic representation
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4. ISC Fellows’ Meeting: ISC Fellows “Brain Trust”
- Coordinators: Prof. Paul Arthur Berkman ([email protected]), Prof. Rana Dajani ([email protected])
- Target audience: ISC Fellows (open to all delegates)
This roundtable dialogue will be co-convened by Prof. Rana Dajani (Jordan) and Prof. Paul Arthur Berkman (United States) with imagination that Fellows of the International Science Council (ISC) can create a ‘brain trust’ with capacities to shift the global narrative across generations, enhancing the recent “Declaration on Future Generations” that emerged from the Summit of the Future. Inquiry is a hallmark of science, asking questions with rigorous methodologies that contribute to decisionmaking. The ISC Fellows ‘Brain Trust’ will help to frame and ask questions that build common interests for the future of humanity short-to-long term, facilitating transdisciplinary inclusion of diverse perspectives across the natural sciences, social sciences and Indigenous knowledge with society. It is anticipated the capacity of the ISC Fellows ‘Brain Trust’ will help leaders, decisionmakers and stakeholders create a more equitable world with science as a global public good forever. Could the ISC Fellows coordinate a dialogue like Bretton Woods (which stimulated global implementation before-through-after the inflection point of the Second World War), evolving beyond an international monetary system to create an international sustainability system? How could science diplomacy help to facilitate dialogues among allies and adversaries with the Middle East, Ukraine or the South China Sea (as international examples), seeking to make informed decisions across a ‘continuum of urgencies’ from security to sustainability time scales? We envision the following deliverables from this event: (1) List of scientists and stakeholders interested to develop a transdisciplinary ‘brain trust’ within the ISC; (2) Draft concept note about synergies and expectations among ISC Fellows; and (3) An action plan for the next year to build an ISC Fellows ‘Brain Trust’.
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5. Early and Mid-Career Researchers’ Roundtable
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6. Introducing the Coalition on Reforming Research Assessment (CoARA)
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7. Managing knowledge for impact, equity and sustainability
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8. WorldFAIR+: Making data work for cross-domain grand challenges
13:00 – 14:00: Lunch
14:00 – 17:30: Formal General Assembly (see outline agenda)
Thursday, 30 January
General Assembly day 2
9:00 – 12:30: Formal General Assembly (see outline agenda)
12:30 – 14:00: Lunch
14:00 – 17:00: Formal General Assembly (see outline agenda)
Friday, 31 January
Time for self-organized networking and meetings
Optional sightseeing tours
The Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation of Oman is generously inviting delegates to a free of charge full-day tour. The tour will start at approx. 7:30 and finish around 18:00. Highlights include a visit to Nizwa Souq, Nizwa Fort, and the Oman Across Ages Museum. More details will be available in due course.
ISC Governing Board meeting – for ISC Governing Board members only (09:30 – 16:30)
Saturday, 1 February
ISC Governing Board meeting – for continuing and new ISC Governing Board members only (9:30 – 13:00)
The scientific agenda of the General Assembly was developed by the secretariat with guidance from an ad hoc Programme Committee, consisting of Karina Batthyány, Vanessa McBride, Maria Paradiso, Sawako Shirahase, Martin Visbeck, working with Yousuf Al-Bulushi.
Formal General Assembly programme
An outline agenda for the formal General Assembly (29–30 January 2025) is already available.
A detailed agenda for the formal General Assembly will be shared in September.
