"This is on the Rise and Fall of S&T on the global agenda. The 1963 Geneva UN Conference wanted the S&T divide between rich and poor countries to be bridged by systematic international cooperation. The later North–South confrontation gave the transfer of knowledge a decisive role. Come the 1979 Vienna Conference, fewer UN agencies participated. Twenty years on, UNESCO and ICSU had a World Science Conference in Budapest; the UN and other agencies were bystanders. The focus was on S and not the The end of the Cold War and the ongoing globalisation led to new S&T partnerships. UN and its agencies face an increasingly critical attitude from their member states on S&T, aggravated by there now being no UN system-wide approach."