RUN 2018 - Rethinking Methods of Investigation

Good evening, Ladies and Gentleman,
Dear Scholars and Researches,

Thank you for giving me the honour of opening RUN 2018, an event entirely dedicated to researching the United Nations. You will agree that it takes some courage to stand before you as both a speaker AND as subject of research. This courage comes from my determination to contribute to building a stronger relationship between your world and the work we carry out in our Organizations.

Geneva is the perfect place for this Conference: the topics you will discuss are of global relevance, and of course International Organizations are present everywhere on the planet, yet Geneva has been the cradle of multilateralism for the past 150 years, it has developed an extensive ecosystem of substantive knowledge, actors and organizations active in all aspects of international relations and across the entire spectrum of UN mandates, and it has a vibrant research community willing to engage with International Organizations.

I often say that there is no aspect of our daily lives that is untouched by the work of the many UN Agencies headquartered in Geneva. International Geneva is also a privileged observation deck for those interested in global trends. At the same time, the city is home to a myriad of academic disciplines with an interest in Internatioanl Organizations: history, law, political sciences, anthropology, computer science, just to mention a few.

Despite the enormous potential for partnership, academic research and international organizations are disciplinary islands in the vast expanse of international relations, with too few bridges to connect them. This insularity is a lost opportunity we can no longer afford if we are to succeed in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in a multilateral context that shows clear signs of deterioration.

I hope that this aspect will emerge during these two days of discussions, and so let me offer two reflections that may help enrich the debate.

First, operationalising the link between academic research and International Organizations is less obvious than it seems, but things are improving. A symposium on the “Research Uptake by International Organizations” we hosted in 2016 discussed how the independence of academic research on the one hand, and bureaucratic inertia in IOs on the other, keep the two worlds separate and travelling on parallel tracks. Yet, it need not be that way in the future. Global problems require informed and evidence-based decision making processes that we can design together.

There are several concrete steps we can take to promote interaction between academia and International Organizations:

In Geneva alone, the partnership between the UN system and the academic sector is growing constantly: the UN Office at Geneva is part of the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS) and we multiply efforts to join hands with the University of Geneva, the Graduate Institute, and other Universities; we are experimenting with Master programmes across national borders with the help of the University of Geneva and China’s Tsinghua University; our SDGLab and the Perception Change Project are new forms of collaborative ventures that help create new opportunities for partnership with researchers; and starting this year we have a new Knowledge & Learning Commons at UN Geneva, which is a natural docking area to plug research into the daily work of the UN secretariat.

Secondly, I believe that in Geneva we have a specific responsibility to act. Geneva is a unique ecosystem of substance and networks providing immense opportunities for action, and Agenda 2030 is the new global framework guiding this action. If we embrace the challenge together, the 17 Goals and 169 Targets are clear enough for us to focus our strategies and federate our resources. Some of the global problems we are facing are impossible to solve with knowledge from the past. This is the moment for interdisciplinary, collaborative and applied research, combined with new sources of intellectual energy provided by youth, civil society, and of course academia.

The overall objective of Agenda 2030 is to build a better world through transformative, participatory and inclusive action. In less than 3 years since the adoption of Agenda 2030, this has become an imperative for the international community. In less than 15 years, history will tell us how well we did, so I am pleased that this conference is about rethinking methods. I encourage you to rethink fast and successfully. We need it more than ever.

Thank you.