This volume addresses the critical question of how scientific collaboration can remain possible in an era of deepening geopolitical tension, without denying difference or enforcing false consensus. It is the outcome of an ongoing, real transnational forum on biogovernance commons, and offers a rare, inside account of the experimental effort to rebuild trust in the governance of the life sciences across the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and beyond.Drawing on sustained dialogue among scientists, ethicists, lawyers, and policy scholars, the volume introduces the idea of the ‘commons’ as a practice of commoning: the ongoing work of making differences intelligible, negotiating conflict, and sustaining cooperation under constraint. Through richly grounded case studies—from genetic data governance and biobanking to biosecurity, CRISPR, and global health—it shows how regulatory impasse is often produced not by incompatible values, but by fractured relations, politicised language, and unequal epistemic authority.Neither a blueprint for harmonisation nor a polemic about China, the volume demonstrates how meaningful collaboration can be rebuilt when formal channels narrow. At once empirically revealing and conceptually innovative, it speaks to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners seeking new ways to govern science responsibly in a divided world.
