SCIENCE POLICY
International Science, Technology Emerge as Major Policy Priorities Interagency committee seeks to keep government up to date on global science activities, an increasingly important part of foreign relations Wil Lepkowski, C&EN Washington
Science and technology today are surrounding the world with an everthickening web of knowledge and complexity. Changes are so swift and the stakes so high that a large contingent of the federal science community is groping for ways to steer the system better and make international science policy more visible to the top echelon at the White House. One of the last things former Presidential Science Adviser George A. Keyworth II did before resigning last December was to sign an order establishing an interagency Committee on International Science, Engineering & Technology (CISET). Keyworth appointed his deputy director John McTague to be its chairman. As acting science adviser, McTague spent much of his time organizing the committee before he himself left OSTP in June. Since then, CISET has been working under acting science adviser Richard G. Johnson. Its executive secretary is OSTP staff member Deborah Wince. Says John Moore, deputy director of the National Science Foundation and member of CISET's executive committee: "This whole area of international science and technology is becoming so important in every respect that its policy objectives need to be considered more explicitly. The world is tearing along in science and engineering, and we need to know what the other countries are doing."
Moore: goals need to be considered Several situations have arisen that may hasten the rethinking CISET is trying to achieve. For example: • The U.S. and Japan have just completed an arrangement whereby they will essentially monopolize the world market for computer chips. Other countries are crying foul, accusing the two countries of establishing a global cartel. Chips are at the leading edge of high tech, and other countries don't want to be shut out of the international market. With Japan increasing its investments in U.S. high-tech and venture capital firms, is an even bigger cartel looming?. • The high-energy physics community in the U.S. wants to reclaim world leadership in the field by constructing a huge $6 billion cyclotron called the Super Conducting Supercollider. Others say that because the machine costs so much, the field of high-energy physics
must become global. Instead, they urge a multinational^ funded machine in Geneva, where the world's best accelerator already exists. The Office of Management & Budget leans toward the international approach. "Six billion dollars would buy an awful lot of plane tickets to Geneva," one official says. At question then is whether the U.S. should try to recapture leadership, and what will happen if it doesn't. • Atmospheric scientists are pretty much convinced that mankind's industrial activities are altering the global climate and causing other changes that already are affecting human health. Scattered research around the world is investigating the many potential causes and theorized effects. But a concerted effort to understand the problem will take lots of money and immense coordination. That effort does not exist yet, but it is beginning. If the scientists conclude, however, that industrialization must slow, the developing countries may accuse the rich countries of trying to brake the pace of industrial development in the Third World. • Next year, the international Antarctic Treaty comes up for renewal. Preliminary discussions over its provisions already have begun at the United Nations. Third World countries want more participation in future plans, believing there is wealth to be gotten in Antarctica. At issue is whether the larger powers will seek to exploit the continent for economic reasons or instead maintain it as a place where everyone can work side by side for the common good. • The U.S. State Department is about to appoint a new science chief in its Moscow embassy. The nominee, Max Robinson, has no science or science policy background but is August 25, 1986 C&EN
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Science Policy
CISET has four major working groups The Committee on International Science, Engineering & Technology has four major working groups: • Education, infrastructure, and facilities. Chairman, John Moore, deputy director, National Science Foundation. Its focus is to develop policy options to increase the effectiveness of U.S. participation in the international science, engineering, and technological system; and to develop recommendations on education, mobility of scientists and engineers, and sharing of major research facilities internationally. • Science, engineering, technology and international competitiveness. Chairman, Bruce Merrifield, Commerce Department's assistant secretary for productivity, technology, and innovation. Its function is to assess the impact of R&D policies and investments on international economic and research competitiveness; establish methods of assessing new technological developments abroad; and recommend new initiatives in international science and
technology to promote the U.S. competitive position. • Bilateral and multilateral activities. Chairman, John Negroponte, State Department's assistant secretary for oceans, environment, and science. Its purpose is to develop policy options and recommendations to optimize U.S. participation in bilateral and multilateral activities of importance to the U.S.; evaluate U.S. participation in the world climate research program; and examine costs and benefits of U.S. involvement in foreign technical relations. • Strategic science, engineering, and technology cooperation and technology transfer. Chairman, Maurice A. Roesch III, OSTP. Its goal is to identify the scientific and technological policy objectives of strategic science and technology cooperation, especially regarding the Soviet Union; assess national security, technology transfer, and foreign policy implications; and recommend options to advance national goals and protect security interests.
instead a foreign policy specialist. than that. International science and People with strong backgrounds in technology are integral with what Soviet science policy from the de- we do, not anything apart from it." The ideal change, OSTP sources partment's own science bureau (the office of oceans, environment, and say, would be to establish an "inscience) were not allowed to bid on ternational science and technology the job. What is needed to revamp service" similar to two special serthe science structure in the State vices that already exist, the Foreign Agricultural Service and the ForDepartment? A complete list of issues, prob- eign Commercial Service. The first lems, and discontinuities in inter- is run by the Agriculture Departnational science and technology pol- ment, the second by the Commerce icy would fill a book. The point is Department. Both have office space that science and technology are a set aside in U.S. embassies but neibig part of foreign relations, and ther is controlled by the State Dethe U.S. government now wants to partment. The international science keep its fingers more attentively on and technology service would, some schemes say, be run by NSF, with the global pulse. CISET's early objective is to de- people coming from other governmolish some old perceptions. As one ment agencies and from universities. NSF staff member sees it, "The attiThe State Department, which has tude about our scientific relations 40 science attachés at its embassies with other countries is generally (only half of them trained in scicomplacent. It's felt that the U.S. is ence), isn't enthusiastic about that in the lead, that foreign trips on prospect. The feeling at the State the subject are boondoggles, that Department is that it is aware of other countries offer nothing we the needs and is doing what it can to can use, and that what we give them improve the science attaché system. constitutes charity. Says deputy assistant secretary "But it's a lot more complicated Robert G. Morris, a physicist who 20
August 25, 1986 C&EN
just finished a tour as science counselor in Bonn, "We are working to interest more people with science backgrounds to enter the foreign service. We are also working to provide more science policy training to people in the foreign service. We'd like to have a science officer in every embassy. But it's a matter of funds. In areas where we don't have a full-time science officer, we ask the ambassador to designate a person to handle science issues. We have annual plans for the embassies and we're working hard with the posts to make them more aware of scientific issues. We're having to plan more on how information is to be collected and disseminated. We're working on improving that." One OSTP source says even that isn't enough. "The main problem," the source says, "is that science attachés don't come out of the R&D community. They don't follow the larger science policy issues—for example, the changing world environment in which competitiveness is linked to science and technology." To John Williams, who works with Bruce Merrifield, assistant secretary for productivity, technology, and innovation at the Commerce Department, information is the key issue. "I don't think the structure is as important as the quality of the information that is gotten and disseminated. What we really need are ways to get people to consider competitiveness more seriously." Also, Williams says, almost no thought is given to the patent and licensing implications of scientific exchange programs between the U.S. and other countries. "All this activity is exciting," comments William Blanpied of the National Science Foundation, one of a key g r o u p of staff people w h o helped develop NSF's role in CISET. "It finally gives the government a chance to organize itself on an interagency basis to look at policy issues and how they are related. We can't have everybody doing their own thing anymore. But first we have to get a handle on how the U.S. government relates to the international system. People are saying international science is tremendously important, but no one knows much about it." D
