Kulik: Advancing Inclusive Innovation: How the G20 Is Shaping Global Science Policy

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Analysis

Advancing Inclusive Innovation:
How the G20 Is Shaping Global Science Policy

The true measure of the G20 Chief Science Advisers’ roundtable is not the quality of its discussions in Pretoria in September 2025, but the extent to which its recommendations are reflected in the G20 leaders’ final declaration in Johannesburg in November 2025. Throughout the year, G20 Chief Science Advisers had highlighted that equitable science, technology and innovation (STI) are essential for delivering on the G20’s broader agenda of solidarity, equality and sustainability. The question now is whether leaders have heeded this advice, or whether the roundtable’s insights will be filtered out in the political process. This is a key test of how seriously the G20 takes inclusive human development and the role of science in shaping it.

On 21 September 2025, the G20 Chief Science Advisers’ Roundtable (CSAR), convened by the South Africa’s G20 Presidency by the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) and the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI), brought together chief science advisers and their equivalents from G20 members. First established during India’s 2023 Presidency, the CSAR plays a key role in providing expert advice on STI policy, helping scientific evidence into international strategies for addressing global challenges.

Under the 2025 theme of “Equity-based science, technology and innovation for inclusive human development and global sustainability,” the roundtable examined how STI can contribute to more equitable and sustainable development. The discussions aligned with the broader objectives of the G20 Johannesburg Summit and underscored the importance of integrating science advice into global policymaking.

In their inputs to these meetings, CSAR participants stressed that without stronger international cooperation on climate and biodiversity research, fair access to technology, investment in scientific capacity, and the protection of research integrity, global STI systems will remain fragmented and unequal. Their message was clear: effective G20 action requires not only better science, but fairer science, backed by resources, coordination and political will.

The meeting took place alongside and informed the G20 Research and Innovation Working Group (RIWG) meeting on 21 and 22 September and the G20 Research and Innovation ministerial meeting on 23 September. Together, these meetings emphasised the need for science systems that are more open, collaborative and responsive to societal needs. Participants highlighted the strategic role of science advice in informing global policy, noting that “the link between knowledge and action is not automatic, and often needs to be cultivated, supported and steered to where it is most needed.” Furthermore, they said “science should not only guide policy but also be guided by it, to ensure outcomes that serve the greater good.”

Collectively, these expert discussions contributed to a set of recommendations fully endorsed by all members and put forward to G20 leaders for adoption. They were as follows:

Adapting policies and infrastructures to promote open science, enabling diverse and broader participation, transparency and access to scientific knowledge;
Investing in education, skills and science to support a scientifically literate society capable of contributing to and benefiting from science;
Building trust, advancing communication, mutual understanding and collaboration to encourage diverse and broad public participation in science engagement;
Enhancing global leadership for science engagement to promote international collaboration, best practices and address global challenges.

Each recommendation was accompanied by several sub-recommendations that all point in the same direction: widening access to scientific knowledge, strengthening public capacity to engage with science, removing linguistic and cultural barriers that limit participation, and investing in international cooperation that ensures no community is left behind in the global scientific enterprise. The emphasis on trust-building, Indigenous knowledge systems and multilingual infrastructure signals a growing recognition that science engagement must reflect the diversity of the societies it aims to serve.

In the G20 South Africa Summit: Leaders’ Declaration on 22 November 2025, there were few references to the role of science in shaping policies and commitments on key priority issues such as disaster resilience, the energy transition, critical minerals for inclusive growth, food security, artificial intelligence (AI) for sustainable development, and above all climate change.
However, toward the end of the declaration, G20 leaders reiterated that “research and innovation should be an enterprise that actively promotes the participation of women and girls in STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics], and reduces global inequalities and asymmetries in the access to and production of knowledge.” They agreed to implement the above G20 Recommendations on Science Engagement in order to “broaden participation in and make science accessible to all in society, bolstering our commitments to Open Science.”

This is especially true in regard to the essential roles of universities and academic freedom in conducting sound science and advancing emerging technologies such as AI, quantum computing, biotechnologies and other natural, physical and digital science, but also in the social sciences and humanities that have long put ethical considerations at the centre of their concerns.

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This page was last updated November 23, 2025