Research

On this page we will list project publications as they appear. The first piece is already available, as Doubravka Olšáková has contributed to a forum within the Journal of Modern European History:

Kochetkova, Elena, Doubravka Olšáková, Vedran Duančić, Gleb Kazakov, Julia Lajus, Stephen Milder, Vedran Muić and Olga Trufanova, ‘Zero Growth, Socialist Modernity, and the Anti-Environmental Turn in Eastern Europe’, Journal of Modern European History, First View access 21 July 2026.

The members of the HESG project team have previously published on subjects relating to the project. Below lis features some of their earlier work dealing with some of the themes of the project.

Blog Posts

Adamson, Matthew, Sam Robinson, Gordon Barrett and Lif Lund Jacobsen, ‘Can science diplomacy keep up with a world in crisis?’, LSE Impact Blog (29 April 2025), available at 
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2025/04/29/can-science-diplomacy-keep-up-with-a-world-in-crisis/.

Olšáková, Doubravka and Sam Robinson, ‘Global Conflict and the Rise of “Post Naïve” Science Diplomacy’, LSE Impact Blog (6 May 2022), available at 
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2022/05/06/global-conflict-and-the-rise-ofpost-naive-science-diplomacy/.

Articles, Books and Chapters

Barrett, Gordon, ‘Between Sovereignty and Legitimacy: China and UNESCO, 1946–1953’, Modern Asian Studies 53, no. 5 (2019): 1516–42.

Barrett, Gordon, China’s Cold War Science Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Barrett, Gordon and Aya Homei, ‘Decentring Histories of Science Diplomacy: Cases from Asia’, The British Journal for the History of Science 57, no. 2 (2024): 165–73.

Barrett, Gordon, Claire Edington, Aya Homei, Kate Sullivan de Estrada, and Zuoyue Wang, ‘Concluding Conversation: Decentring Science Diplomacy’, The British Journal for the History of Science 57, no. 2 (2024): 273–85.

David, Thomas, Anne-Isabelle Richard, Pierre Singaravélou; conversation avec Sven Beckert, Elisabeth Dikizeko, Ali Raza, Bárbara Kirsi Silva, Jos Gommans; traduit par Marion Beetschen. ‘Histoire(s) globale(s): convergences et inégalités’, Mondes no. 21 (2022), 117–35.
[English translation published in Itinerario 47, no. 3 (2023): 365–76.

Thomas, Daniel Laqua, Maria Framke, Anne-Isabelle Richard, Patricia Oliart, Kate Skinner, Pilar Requejo de Lamo, Robert Kramm, Charlotte Alston and Matthew Hurst, ‘Rethinking Transnational Activism through Regional Perspectives: Reflections, Literatures and Cases’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 2 (2024): 317–43. 

Ibarra, Cecilia, Raúl O’Rya, and Bárbara Kirsi Silva, ‘Applying Knowledge Governance to Understand the Role of Science in Environmental Regulation: The case of Arsenic in Chile’, Environmental Science & Policy 86 (2018), 115–24. 

Jacobsen, Lif Lund, ‘Arctic Geopolitics and the Beginning of Earthquake Monitoring in Denmark and Greenland’, GEUS Bulletin 38 (2017): 73–6.  

Jacobsen, Lif Lund, ‘Danish Seismic Research in Relation to American Nuclear Detection Efforts’, in Exploring Greenland: Cold War Science and Technology on Ice, ed. Kristine C Harper, Matthias Heymann and Ronald E Doel (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 167–91.

Jacobsen, Lif Lund and Doubravka Olšáková, ‘Diplomats in Science Diplomacy: Promoting Scientific and Technological Collaboration in International Relations’, Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 43, no. 4 (2020): 465–72.

Jacobsen, Lif Lund, Irina Fedorova and Julia Lajus, ‘The Seismograph as a Diplomatic Object: The Soviet–American Exchange of Instruments, 1958–1964’, Centaurus 63, no. 2 (2021): 277–95.

Laqua, Daniel, Activism across Borders since 1870: Causes, Campaigns and Conflicts in and beyond Europe (London: Bloomsbury, 2023), esp. chapter 8, ‘Going Green’. 

Laqua, Daniel and Sophie Scott Brown, ‘Grassroots Diplomacy in the Face of Global Disorder: Historical Perspectives’ (discussion paper, British Academy / Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2026). 

Olšáková, Doubravka, ‘Between Stalinism and Infrastructural Globalism: The International Geophysical Year (1957–8) in Czechoslovakia, Poland and German Democratic Republic’, Acta Poloniae Historica no. 115 (2017): 97–122. 

Olšáková, Doubravka, ‘The International Biological Program in Eastern Europe. Science Diplomacy, Comecon and the Beginnings of Ecology in Czechoslovakia’, Environment and History 24, no. 4 (2018): 543–67.

Olšáková, Doubravka and Gordon Barrett, ‘World Federation of Scientific Workers’, in The Palgrave Handbook of Non-State Actors in East-West Relations, ed. Péter Marton, Gry Thomasen, Csaba Békés and András Rácz, 541–54. Cham: Springer, 2024).  

Olšáková Doubravka and Jiří Janáč, ‘On the Road to Stockholm: A Case Study of the Failure of Cold War International Environmental Initiatives (Prague Symposium, 1971)’, Centaurus 63 (2021):132–49. 

Rispoli, Giulia and Doubravka Olšáková, ‘Science and Diplomacy around the Earth: From the Man and Biosphere Programme to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme’, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 50, no. 4 (2020): 456–81.

Sam Robinson, Matthew Adamson, Gordon Barrett, Lif Lund Jacobsen, Simone Turchetti, Aya Homei, Péter Marton, Leah Aronowsky, Iqra Choudry, Johan Gärdebo, Jaehwan Hyun, Gerardo Ienna, Carringtone Kinyanjui, Beatriz Martínez-Rius, Júlia Mascarello, Doubravka Olšáková, Giulia Rispoli and Waqar Zaidi, ‘The Globalization of Science Diplomacy in the Early 1970s: A Historical Exploration’, Science and Public Policy 50, no. 4 (2023): 749–58.

Silva, Bárbara Kirsi, ‘Entre mulas e interferómetros: La exploración astronómica en Coquimbo como una práctica compartida’, in Ciencia, tecnología e imaginarios de innovación, Historia de la Ciencia y la Tecnología en Chile, vol. IV,  ed. Nelson Arellano and Cecilia Ibarra, (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 2023), 215–34.

Silva, Bárbara Kirsi, ‘Reaching for the Stars during the Cold War. Science and Diplomacy in the Rise of Astronomy in Chile’, in The Missing Interaction: Science and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War , ed. Maria Rentetzi (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2025), 179–201.

Silva, Bárbara Kirsi, Cecilia Ibarra and Mauricio Osses, ‘Interdisciplinary Practices for the History of Solar Engineering in Chile’, in Rethinking Technology and Engineering. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology: Dialogues Across Disciplines and Geographies, ed. Albrecht Fritzsche and Andrés Santa-María (Cham: Springer, 2023), 213–23.

Silva, Bárbara Kirsi, ‘Stars, Mules, and Interferometers in Early Transnational Astronomy in 1960s Chile’, Arcadia: Explorations in Environmental History (2020).