91. Tim Gore and Sakine Weikert: The possibilities of knowledge diplomacy

In the modern day and age, especially technical developments continue to make it easier and easier to share knowledge across any type of border. However, sharing knowledge also has its dangers, as we’ve seen within the world of international higher education as well. Both institutions and organisations within the field are trying to figure out how to best approach this question of knowledge diplomacy: how to tackle these possible risks while still sharing knowledge with one another?  

In July 2024, the EAIE was part of a conference organised by the University of London Institute in Paris titled ‘Shaping the future: rethinking the role universities play in international relations.’ EAIE podcast host Laura Rumbley is joined by two experts who spoke at this conference: Tim Gore, Chief Executive Officer of the University of London Institute in Paris, and Sakine Weikert, Head of Section at the Centre for International Academic Collaborations (KIWi) at DAAD – German Academic Exchange Service. How do they define the term ‘knowledge diplomacy’?  What are some of the key issues or concerns that inject a level of urgency into the topic of knowledge development today? And is there anything on the horizon that we should be on the lookout for?

About Tim Gore
Tim Gore is the Chief Executive Officer of the University of London Institute in Paris. He has held senior leadership roles in career postings in France, the UK, India, Jordan, Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong and has substantial experience in higher education in a global context, cultural relations, diplomacy and commercial enterprise. His main expertise is strategy applied within higher educational contexts as well as in the internationalisation of higher education and leadership. He has worked closely with a range of government organisations in the countries he has served and received the OBE for his work in India-UK bilateral relations while he was leading the British Council’s education work in India.

About Sakine Weikert
Sakine Weikert is Head of the Section Center for International Academic Collaborations (KIWi) at DAAD - German Academic Exchange Service. KIWi offers individual advice and networked expertise to German universities and research organisations in the field of international science cooperation and foreign academic policy. One focus topic is raising awareness on safety-relevant aspects, and the other one is knowledge diplomacy. Her regional expertise is in China: From 2018 – 2022, she has been Head of the DAAD office in Shanghai and a DAAD lecturer at the German Department of Fudan University Shanghai. She is trained as a scholar in Comparative Literature and Media Studies at Freie Universität Berlin and she has been a Visiting Researcher at The University of Chicago as well as at Princeton University.

Additional resources
For further insights into the topics touched on in this episode, the following resources may be of interest:
→ DAAD KIWi
→ University of London in Paris – Knowledge Diplomacy Project
→ Navigating new realities in international academic collaboration
→ Walking the line: the UK and China