Coordination of International Science Partnerships

Opening Statement By Chairman Daniel Lipinski

Good afternoon. Welcome to this Research and Science Education Subcommittee hearing on Coordination of International Science Partnerships. Last year this subcommittee, then led by Dr. Baird, held two hearings on the topic of international science and technology cooperation: one on the role of federal agencies, including the Office of Science and Technology Policy; and the second on the role of non-governmental organizations, including universities. Dr. Baird, Dr. Ehlers and Mr. Carnahan also hosted a roundtable here in the committee room and participated in a workshop hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

I want to thank Dr. Baird for making international cooperation a priority for the Subcommittee. I concur with him that the new Administration gives us a tremendous opportunity and a fresh outlook for both science and foreign policy. We have a chance to take advantage of our preeminence in science and technology to strengthen diplomatic ties, help ensure that decision makers around the world have access to the best scientific advice, and leverage other country’s resources to tackle common challenges in energy, climate, water resources and health.

While the hearings last year included broad conversations about the value and importance of science and technology cooperation to our economic and national security, today we will focus on the practical mechanisms for coordinating such activities across the federal government, including between the technical agencies and the State Department. In particular, we are going to examine a legislative proposal that would create a committee to coordinate U.S. participation in international S&T partnerships and identify partnerships at the intersection of our nation’s S&T and foreign policy missions.

In the 1990’s, there was such a Committee, known as the Committee on International Science, Engineering and Technology, or CISET [SYSET]. CISET existed within the National Science and Technology Council, which is managed by OSTP and is the main interagency coordinating body for federal R&D activities. CISET had three main goals:

• It was tasked to identify and coordinate international cooperation that could strengthen the domestic S&T enterprise and promote U.S. economic competitiveness and national security.
• CISET also helped utilize American leadership in S&T to address global issues and to support the post-Cold War tenets of U.S. foreign policy -- promoting democracy, maintaining peace, and fostering economic growth and sustainable development.
• Finally, CISET helped coordinate the international aspects of Federal R&D funding across federal agencies.

President Bush’s OSTP Director chose to disband CISET in favor of a distributed approach to coordination of international activities, either subsumed within issue-area committees under NSTC or convened in response to a call from the State Department to work with a specific country. But such an ad-hoc, distributed approach almost certainly missed opportunities for the State Department and technical agencies to identify and engage in partnerships of mutual interest.

I am very happy that the new OSTP Director, Dr. Holdren, has indicated his intention to appoint an Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at OSTP, a position which his predecessor dismissed as unnecessary. But the legislation we are discussing today would also ask Dr. Holdren to go a step further in asserting a leadership role for OSTP in international S&T cooperation by reconstituting a Committee on International Science, Engineering and Technology under NSTC.

The witnesses before us to today have extensive expertise and personal experience with interagency coordination for international S&T, and I look forward to their comments on our legislative proposal. In particular, we want to make sure that CISET has a unique purpose and role relative to subject area committees within NSTC, that it effectively engages both the technical agencies and the Department of State, and that it can serve an important function even without new money for international partnerships. I want to thank all of the witnesses for taking the time to appear before the Committee this afternoon and I look forward to your testimony.
 

Witnesses

Panel

0 - Dr. Jon Strauss
Chairman Task Force on International Science National Science Board Task Force on International Science National Science Board
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0 - Dr. Norman Neureiter
Director Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy American Association for the Advancement of Science Center for Science, Technology and Security Poli
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0 - Mr. Anthony “Bud” Rock
Vice President for Global Engagement Arizona State University Arizona State University
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0 - Dr. Gerald Hane
Managing Director Q-Paradigm Q-Paradigm
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