865 



Foreign Policy* 



RODXEY W. NICHOLS 



Introduction 



Virtually every major scientific and technological policy 

 issue comes within the span of both domestic and foreign policy. Un- 

 questionably, all the "functional" topics — such as Food, Health and 

 Energy that are considered elsewhere— have to be thought about today 

 in global terms. 



Even worse, we must keep other themes in mind. For example, two 

 subjects are not explicitly included in this conference's program: Defense 

 and Space. It would have been inconceivable to have an international 

 meeting on science and technology policy in the 1950s or 1960s without 

 devoting considerable attention to national and international security. 

 Similarly, other important foreign-policy-related topics were left off the 

 formal agenda for reasons that no doubt related to limits of time; e.g., 

 the problem of population growth, and the concern about proliferation 

 of nuclear weapons. 



Furthermore, several "cross-cutting" subjects are not explicitly on the 

 program here because they are less important for industrialized nations. 

 But because some of these subjects are crucial for developing countries, 

 they create foreign policy problems for developed nations. In this cate- 

 gory would be issues such as the priorities for industrialization; the needs 

 for much broader education and training; and the problems in retrieving 

 and distilling information (at the working level in R&D and at the policy- 

 making levels) for national priority-setting affecting R&D. 



So while our assigned task is difficult, it would have been even more 

 complex if the full agenda were known. Bringing coherence to this do- 

 main is long overdue. A brief outline may help to structure discussion 

 and reveal the envelope within which most of the current policy debates 

 take place (see Table 1). 



* The author spoke from notes. This paper was prepared later and, although it is some- 

 what longer than the 20-minute presentation at the meeting, it retains the aim of opening 

 up many subjects rather than assessing a smaller number in greater depth. 



Rodney W. Nichols is Executive Vice-President of The Rockefeller University. 



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