The Biotech Campus in Geneva is also home to GESDA. | Photo: zVg

The NGO ‘Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator’ (GESDA) was founded in 2019 and aims to bring together science and diplomacy. According to its Chairman, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, GESDA wants “to anticipate advances in frontier scientific work … and to develop around them new initiatives, projects and solutions for humanity”. The Board of GESDA also includes the former Federal Councillor Micheline Calmy-Rey. In late 2020, 68 men and women from the fields of science and diplomacy held a virtual discussion, and by the end of the current year, GESDA will have to convince its funding organisations – the federal government, the canton and city of Geneva and private individuals – that it has a promising future. In the words of its communications director Olivier Dessibourg: “From now, we have one big year to show that what we are doing is useful and makes sense”.