Statement of the Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of World Science Day for Peace and Development 2025.

Science offers concrete solutions to the greatest challenges of our time: climate disruption, pandemics, resource scarcity and growing inequalities. It is a common good, a universal language, capable of bringing us together beyond borders and differences, linking knowledge to the pursuit of the collective good. Yet, in a world faced with widespread misinformation and distrust, we must come together to ensure that science is not reduced to a mere commodity or a political instrument. Science must instead be guided by ethics and solidarity, serving the common good. It is in this spirit that we celebrate World Science Day for Peace and Development under the theme “Trust, Transformation and Tomorrow: The Science We Need for 2050”. Trust cannot be demanded or decreed – it must be built. It grows through open and sustained dialogue between researchers, policymakers, private actors and citizens alike. Rebuilding trust in science lies at the heart of UNESCO’s 2021 Recommendation on Open Science, which calls for a global commitment to transparency, participation and accessibility. Through this recommendation, we can renew trust in science and ensure that it benefits all. But to produce the science of tomorrow, we must unlearn certain habits: we must move beyond silos – refusing to privilege certain forms of knowledge over others, or to confuse innovation with accumulation. Instead, we must relearn how to diversify, share, collaborate and listen. This means listening to researchers, but also to local and Indigenous peoples, whose insights and traditions enrich the collective understanding of our world. Only through active public participation can science truly serve everyone. To mark this year’s World Science Day, UNESCO is proud to publish a landmark anthology tracing 80 years of science at UNESCO, bringing together 46 essays by Nobel laureates, written for UNESCO between 1948 and today. It retraces the evolution of international scientific cooperation and diplomacy, the creation of leading institutions such as CERN and SESAME, the establishment of the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme, and the development of global ethical frameworks on bioethics, artificial intelligence and neurotechnology. As part of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (2024-2033), UNESCO is deepening this commitment by breaking down barriers in research, stimulating international cooperation and strengthening academic networks, and ensuring that science informs public policy at every level. On this World Science Day for Peace and Development, UNESCO reaffirms its conviction that open, inclusive, and ethical science – designed for the collective good – is the cornerstone of lasting peace.

Message from Ms Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of World Science Day for Peace and Development, 10 November 2025