980 



Office of International Programs directly administers only about 5 

 percent of the NSF's international and foreign science activities. It 

 does not seem to maintain close liaison with other NSF offices which 

 administer the bulk of these programs. There is little evidence to 

 suggest that the Director of National and International Programs 

 provides these coordinating functions on a continuing basis. 



Owing to the Foundation's need to m.eet the requirements of scientific 

 scholarship, and as a result of the fragmentation of activities, the 

 Foundation has not maintained consistent and appropriate records of 

 its foreign scientific exchange programs. With the exception of the in- 

 ternational travel program, one or two cooperative scientific projects, 

 and some bilateral activities, the Foundation generally does not require 

 grantees to report on international or foreign activities. Similarly, 

 except for a small number of programs, the Foundation does not require 

 grantees to meet any special language or other cultural qualifications 

 for the conduct of activities overseas, nor to report to the Foundatipn 

 on the particular implications, if any, of the conduct of these activities. 

 Only in fiscal year 1970 did the Foundation begin to attempt to collect 

 data, and then in onl}^ a perfunctory fashion, on overseas activities 

 undertaken with NSF funds. 



Among the more important implications of these factors are the 

 following: 



Since the NSF did not keep adeqirate records on nor consist- 

 ently report to the Congress on foreign and international scientific 

 activities, it is hard to obtain a valid picture of their scope and 

 evolution; 



Fragmentation of support and administration of foreign and 

 international scientific activities, in the absence of any explicit 

 reporting requirements, has kept the Foundation from defining 

 and developing a role as a lead U.S. agency in support of inter- 

 national science and scientific exchange activities. While a number 

 of these progi*ams very probably have advanced the cause of in- 

 ternational science and international politics, there is little in- 

 formation on their achievements or impacts. The absence of both 

 data and a mechanism to plan programs on a Foundation-wide 

 basis undermines NSF's responsibility for determining program 

 priorities in both the short- and long-range future. Systematic 

 determination of priorities, both within and among programs 

 seems to be required, since the programs are both increasing and 

 becoming more significant as tools of foreign policy. 

 A number of NSF programs suffer from poor participation rates by 

 U.S. scientists. These include bilateral agreements for technical as- 

 sistance or to promote political cooperation. U.S. scientific participa- 

 tion is circumscribed by language barriers and sometimes by insufficient 

 scientific reward. It is conceivable that NSF could design programs 

 which would satisfy more easily criteria for U.S. scientific participation 

 and for country planning needed to develop the science infrastructure 

 of developing countries. For example, the Foundation might insist 

 on better evaluation of the experiences of the programs it supports, 

 better reporting, improve in-house evaluation of reports and of 

 program accomplishments and problems, and more attention to 

 requirements for effective performance. • - 



