place through interagency panels established under 

 the Coordinating Committee for each RANN 

 subactivity. In addition, special panels and task 

 forces are employed for coordination when re- 

 quired. At the project level, in addition to the re- 

 view requested of the scientific and State and local 

 community, RANN requests reviews from other 

 agency officials of research proposals that bear on 

 the interests or programs of their agencies. 



Although the lead agency concept generally 

 works effectively, it is often beneficial to avoid 

 designating a lead agency in the early stages of 

 research in order that varied approaches to the 

 problem can be explored by different groups. At 

 the time when it appears feasible to focus the ef- 

 fort or to give priority to certain programs (e.g., 

 development of solar energy), it is desirable to de- 

 signate a lead agency. 



DIRECTORATE FOR SCIENTIFIC, TECHNOLOGICAL, AND INTERNA- 

 TIONAL AFFAIRS 



International scientific activities and science in- 

 formation activities both international and domes- 

 tic are an important part of the National Science 

 Foundation's support of basic research. In these 

 fields, "support" takes several forms — in addition 

 to direct funding of research — over a range encom- 

 passing support of United States participation in 

 international scientific bodies, joint projects by 

 American scientists and colleagues overseas, and 

 the improvement of the dissemination of scientific 

 information domestically and internationally. 

 These programs have moved through a series of 

 organizational changes and for a year have been 

 under a single, newly created Directorate for Sci- 

 entific, Technological, and International Affairs 

 (STIA). Within that Directorate, two main areas 

 are of particular importance to basic research: In- 

 ternational programs and science information. Two 

 other areas having a less direct but substantial 

 bearing on research are policy research and analy- 

 sis, and science resources studies. These serve the 

 Foundation's statutory responsibility to "appraise 

 the impact of research" and "to evaluate the 

 status and needs of the various sciences." 



International Cooperative Research 



This program has as a principal purpose, in addi- 

 tion to its objectives in behalf of United States 

 foreign policy, the strengthening of American sci- 

 ence through access to unique facilities, data, 

 ideas, and expertise abroad. There is a reciprocal 

 benefit for international science through access to 

 the American scientific community by foreign sci- 

 entists visiting here and those visited abroad. 



The array of projects under this program largely 

 mirrors the domestic research priorities of the 

 Foundation, and most have a significant basic re- 

 search component. The Foundation's role in inter- 

 national scientific cooperation has increased in 

 scope and intensity. At present, there are 21 bilat- 

 eral agreements; in 16 of these the Foundation has 

 sole management responsibility as the executive 



agent for the Federal Government; in 5, the activi- 

 ty is carried out by the National Academy of Sci- 

 ences with Foundation support. Further interna- 

 tional activities take place in seven Joint Coopera- 

 tive Commissions in which the Foundation has a 

 presiding or membership role; through support of 

 United States participation in international scien- 

 tific bodies; through international travel by 

 individual United States scientists; and through 

 the use of United States-owned excess foreign cur- 

 rency for projects to be performed in the country 

 of its origin. Such projects must involve participa- 

 tion by United States scientists and be of high sci- 

 entific merit and of benefit to both countries. 



Cooperation under formal intergovernmental 

 agreements may take the form of joint research 

 projects, seminars, and visits back and forth to 

 teach or conduct research. These activities take 

 place over a wide range of research fields, includ- 

 ing the life, physical, and social sciences, and engi- 

 neering. 



Examples of United States cooperation planned 

 or achieved include: With Japan, seminars on 

 earthquake prediction; with India, work in solid 

 state physics; with Hungary, work on the behavior 

 of molecules during the formation of polymers; 

 with Pakistan, a seminar on genetic control of 

 diversity in plants; with the Soviet Union, joint 

 projects in metallurgy and chemical catalysis; with 

 the People's Republic of China, discussions there, 

 by visiting American scientists, in the fields of in- 

 sect control, solid state physics, pure and applied 

 mathematics, the Liaoning earthquake, steroid 

 chemistry, and biochemistry. (The Chinese delega- 

 tion, visiting the United States, was primarily in- 

 terested in technical subjects.) With Egypt, there 

 have been projects in historical geology and the 

 physical adaptation of large animals to desert 

 conditions; and with Polish scientists, the design- 

 ing of a novel instrument to measure the contact 

 angle between liquid and solid surfaces more ac- 

 curately — an assist to basic studies of the surface 



NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 223 



