Beyond vaccines, UNESCO wants more global science shared

PARIS (AP) — While the U.S. president is calling for suspending patents on COVID-19 vaccines, experts at UNESCO are quietly working on a more ambitious plan. They want a new global system for sharing scientific knowledge that would outlast the current pandemic. UNESCO’s specialists say the pandemic has shown that sharing sensitive research is possible. Chinese scientists sequenced and shared the genome of the then-new coronavirus in January 2020, allowing German researchers to then quickly devise a screening test shared around the world. The Open Science project aims to establish guidelines for setting science policies and systematically sharing data, software and research across borders.