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First SiDLab Policy Report: Digital Infrastructure for Multilateralism

The Science in Diplomacy Lab (SiDLab) publishes its first policy report, the outcome of a collective effort by 21 co-authors from Geneva and partner institutions. The report sets out why effective multilateralism needs a data-driven and complexity-aware digital infrastructure, and what building one would entail for international organizations, member states and the research community.

Building a Data-Driven and Complexity-Aware Digital Infrastructure for Effective Multilateralism
Vanackère F, Boggio A, Escher G, Evrard M, Faude B, Gomis M, Kaspiarovich Y, Kim RE, Lees M, Legara EFT, Lo Russo N, Ruhl JB, Sandoval K, Sauser J, Scherer DS, Seidler N, Santos Domínguez AB, Wolf N, Levrat N, Bouffanais R & Wernli D
Science in Diplomacy Lab Policy Report No. 1, Geneva, June 2026. [pdf] [web]

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Op-Ed in L’AGEFI: Genève, le laboratoire d’un État hôte digital

In the Club Diplomatique de Genève column of L’AGEFI, Roland Bouffanais and Didier Wernli argue that the antidote to multilateral fatigue may lie in an under-exploited resource: the data already produced, voted and archived by international organizations. They present Diplodocus, the Geneva platform connecting AI to the corpus of UN resolutions, and make the case for a trustworthy, auditable digital infrastructure that would strengthen Switzerland’s role as host state.

Genève, le laboratoire d’un « État hôte digital » (in French)
Bouffanais R & Wernli D
L’AGEFI, La Chronique du Club Diplomatique de Genève, 6 May 2026. [pdf] [web]

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SiDLab on Léman Bleu

Glass façade of Campus Biotech, Geneva

Geneva television channel Léman Bleu reports on the Science in Diplomacy Lab and its digital platform for anticipating global negotiations: « Une plateforme numérique pour anticiper les négociations mondiales » (in French).

[watch the report]

Photo: Campus Biotech (campusbiotech.ch)

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New Preprint: Aligning the Unseen in Attributed Graphs

First page of the arXiv preprint Aligning the Unseen in Attributed Graphs

Our new preprint studies the interplay between graph geometry and the manifold of node attributes, and how their misalignment reveals hidden structure in attributed graphs.

Aligning the Unseen in Attributed Graphs: Interplay between Graph Geometry and Node Attributes Manifold
Labarthe A, Bouffanais R & Randon-Furling J, arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.22806 (2026).

[pdf] [doi] [web]

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SNSF Grant on Social Contagions and Hypergraphs

Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) logo

The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) funds the four-year project “Transitions in Social Contagions: Opinion Dynamics on Hypergraphs for Collective Decision Systems” (grant 10.006.541, CHF 510,930, January 2026 – December 2029). The project extends our work on the transition from simple to complex contagion to higher-order interactions, with applications to collective decision-making.

[SNSF grant page]

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World Knowledge Dialogue 2026: Multilateralism in Crisis

Panel session “Governing through complexity” at the World Knowledge Dialogue 2026, Campus Biotech, Geneva

From 12 to 14 January 2026 at Campus Biotech in Geneva, the Science in Diplomacy Lab (SiDLab) and the Geneva Transformative Governance Lab (GTGLab) organized the Triangle Azur World Knowledge Dialogue 2026, “Multilateralism in Crisis: The Role of Science Diplomacy in Turbulent Times”, in collaboration with GESDA, the Geneva Science-Policy Interface and the UN University Centre for Policy Research, and with the support of the Universities of Geneva, Lausanne and Neuchâtel.

Over three days, researchers, diplomats and practitioners examined how scientific evidence, data, computational approaches and complex-systems thinking can support more resilient and anticipatory global governance: science for multilateralism (day 1), multilateralism as a complex adaptive system (day 2), and governance design, with the co-production of a GSPI policy brief and an academic perspective article (day 3).

[event page]

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New Preprint: Higher-Order Interactions in U.S. Diplomacy

First page of the arXiv preprint on higher-order interactions in U.S. diplomacy

Using U.S. diplomatic communications, our new preprint shows how hypergraph representations reveal higher-order interactions in complex networks.

Revealing Higher-Order Interactions in Complex Networks: A U.S. Diplomacy Case Study
Rondeau A, Wernli D & Bouffanais R, arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.10333 (2025).

[pdf] [doi] [web]

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Working Paper: Measuring Gridlock in the UN Security Council

A new working paper proposes a data science approach to measure gridlock in the United Nations Security Council from 1946 to 2024.

A Data Science Approach to Measure Gridlock in the United Nations Security Council from 1946 to 2024
Scherer D, Chopard B, Levrat N, Bouffanais R & Wernli D, SSRN 5527746 (2025).

[doi] [web]

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Working Paper: Citation Network of UN Resolutions

A new working paper builds the citation network of United Nations resolutions and shows how it reveals patterns of norm diffusion in multilateral governance.

Citation Network of United Nations Resolutions Reveals Norm Diffusion Patterns in Multilateral Governance
Wernli D, Bouffanais R, Levrat N, Scherer D & Sauser J, SSRN 5390403 (2025).

[doi] [web]

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Director of the Computer Science Department

Université de Genève

Roland Bouffanais has been appointed Director of the Computer Science Department of the Faculty of Science, University of Geneva.

[Computer Science Department]

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Bouffanais’ Research Lab  ·  Applied Complexity Group  ·  Faculty of Science & Global Studies Institute, University of Geneva
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