876 



The NSF programs were designed initially to advance the Nation's 

 domestic science base. This limited objective was gradually expanded 

 as a result of both internal directive and legislative mandate giving 

 the agency increasingly greater responsibility for supporting and 

 initiating programs of international and foreign science and technology. 

 The Foundation's programs are best described as foreign science for 

 the sake of science. However, NSF programs seem to be fragmented 

 administratively and to lack a well-balanced diplomatic advisory 

 mechanism. While such factors meet the agency's need to maintain 

 the integrity of science free from undue political interference, they 

 also evoke questions as to whether these programs can satisfy the 

 Foundation's increasing responsibilities for foreign and international 

 scientific exchange programs. 



The NAS-NRC exchanges with the Soviet Union and the countries 

 of Eastern Europe illustrate a unique dimension of programs which 

 support nongovernmental scientists abroad. These activities represent 

 an attempt to establish fruitful scientific exchanges between ideo- 

 logically disparate States which maintain mutually restrictive policies 

 regarding the exchange of persons. These programs are the most politi- 

 cally sensitive of the bilateral activities discussed. Their success 

 requires high-caliber nongovernmental scientific participation in plan- 

 ning and execution. 



This study raises also some broader issues of the interactions and 

 conflicts between science and diplomacy. For instance, each of these 

 programs is subject to a number of factors common to scientific re- 

 search and development in general. At the administrative level all 

 programs have a scrupulous scientific "peer evaluation" mechanism 

 to assist in the selection of participants. Many programs have been 

 influenced by requirements to meet domestic geographic distribution 

 criteria in awarding funds for science, by impacts of retrenchment in 

 overseas research and development funding, and by implications of 

 the need to preserve the integrit^^ of science from undue political and 

 governmental interference. 



A number of issues common to these programs illustrate the con- 

 :straints which result from conflicts between the objectives of science 

 and foreign policy. For instance the data illustrate that many scien- 

 tists are not eager to participate in overseas programs if remuneration 

 is 'not satisfactory, if participation in foreign or international scientific 

 activities is not as potentially rewarding to research and development 

 as is participation in domestic scientific activities, if a program is 

 •designed specifically to support technical-assistance foreign jx)licy 

 ■objectives, or if a program is distinctly pohtically motivated and ad- 

 ministered. Whether as a result or a cause of these problems, most 

 programs, especially those most designed to support scientific objec- 

 tives, have a weak foreign policy administrative apparatus attached 

 to them; only a few programs require evaluation of a scientists 

 potential for effective cultural interaction with his foreign peers; 

 most have no language requirements nor requirements for participants 

 to report on the special foreign conditions encountered in this work. 

 Generally, the evidence suggests that overseas scientific programs 

 motivated primarily by foreign policy considerations have lower- 

 quality selection criteria than do domestic programs. 



