March 24, 2009
Coordination Could Improve International S&T Partnerships, Witnesses Tell Subcommittee
(Washington, DC) –The Science and Technology’s Subcommittee on Research and Science Education held a hearing on Tuesday to discuss draft legislation The International Science and Technology Act of 2009 that would create a committee to coordinate all international science and technology activities and partnerships between and among federal research agencies and the Department of State.
“The new Administration gives us a tremendous opportunity and a fresh outlook for both science and foreign policy,” said Subcommittee Chairman Daniel Lipinski (D-IL). “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.”
The legislation would form a Committee on International Science, Engineering and Technology (CISET) under the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), similar to a committee that existed through the 1990’s.
CISET was disbanded in 2001, and since then international partnerships have been managed on a case-by-case basis. Witnesses argued that, without a coordinated approach to international S&T cooperation, significant opportunities are missed, especially at the intersection of science and diplomacy.
The legislation would assign five key responsibilities to CISET:
· Coordinate international S&T research and education activities and partnerships across the Federal agencies. In addition to the technical agencies and the Department of State, this may also include regulatory and other agencies that work internationally on issues with an S&T component.
· Establish priorities and policies for aligning, as appropriate, international S&T partnerships with the foreign policy goals of the United States.
· Identify opportunities for new international S&T partnerships that advance both the domestic mission of the technical agencies involved and the public diplomacy, national security or other foreign policy mission of the Department of State.
· Work with foreign governments (in coordination with the Department of State) to establish and maintain S&T partnerships.
· Maintain an inventory of international S&T activities funded by the U.S. government for purposes of information sharing between federal agencies and other stakeholders in the U.S. S&T enterprise.
“President Bush’s OSTP Director chose to disband CISET in favor of a distributed approach to coordination of international activities. But such an ad-hoc approach almost certainly missed opportunities for the State Department and technical agencies to identify and engage in partnerships of mutual interest,” said Lipinski. “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 this legislation would 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.”
International S&T cooperation has many benefits for the U.S. and international partners, including:
· strengthening U.S. science and engineering by providing U.S. researchers access to the best researchers and research sites around the world;
· enabling construction of and participation in prohibitively expensive world-class research facilities (either on U.S. soil or foreign sites) by partnering with foreign countries to leverage their funds and scientific talent;
· addressing U.S. interests in global matters, such as nonproliferation, water resources, climate change and infectious diseases, in part by ensuring that foreign and international decision makers have access to the best science;
· helping build technological capacity and address health and resource crises in other countries in order to help maintain U.S. national security and economic interests; and
· helping to build more positive relationships with other countries – what is often called “science diplomacy.”
For more information, please visit the Committee’s website.
###
111.036
Related Subcommittees
Next Article Previous Article