The European Union Science Diplomacy Alliance has prepared an opinion paper in response to the European Commission’s communication on the Global Approach to Research and Innovation, ‘Europe’s strategy for international cooperation in a changing world’. It discusses the principles but also emphasise what is missing and how we could envisage a Science Diplomacy Strategy to complement the Global Approach. Such a strategy should answer the questions Why should the EU invest in science diplomacy? How should it invest? What should be the concrete actions to implement the vision and mission? Our paper makes concrete proposals to this end.