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U.S. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION AND POLICY PROCESS 35 



The result is a policy and budget process geared so automatically to 

 domestic use of funds that necessary adjustments for international 

 projects, e.g., extra initial costs or funds for needed travel, are almost 

 always ad hoc and usually viewed with skepticism. Nor is there a gen- 

 eral climate in the government that recognizes the value to the United 

 States of international cooperation, nor widespread interest and pres- 

 sure from the scientific community at large advocating more interna- 

 tional cooperation as a major policy need. It is anomalous in an era in 

 which high-quality R&D capability exists (and is growing) in many 

 countries that share U.S. interests, in which the problems facing these 

 societies are increasingly common and intertwined with those of the 

 United States, and in which the costs of R&D increase so as to limit the 

 ability of any one country, even the United States, to seek answers 

 entirely on its own, that so little of an international perspective is in 

 evidence. 



To develop that perspective, to take more advantage of the R&D 

 benefits of international cooperation, and to realize the potential 

 value to the United States of an international approach to the prob- 

 lems that loom so large in all societies will require more than a simple 

 policy decision. Agencies, and particularly the lower levels of R&D 

 management, would have to be sure not only that there is high-level 

 executive branch and congressional interest in developing interna- 

 tional activities that support the agencies' R&D objectives, but also 

 that international programs, if competitive, would be welcomed in 

 their overall program and that the likely greater uncertainties encoun- 

 tered in evaluation of new proposals would be sympathetically taken 

 into account. 



There would also have to follow some changes in the funding pro- 

 cess that recognized that international projects cannot be treated sim- 

 ply as any typical proposal that is wholly domestic. Up-front funding 

 may be necessary to explore opportunities and to allow initial devel- 

 opment of proposals that may be harder to formulate because of dif- 

 fering research styles or institutional practices. Some risks may have 

 to be taken for situations in which there could be serious costs if a 

 jointly developed proposal is ultimately rejected. Recognition of the 

 importance of being a reliable partner may also sometimes lead to 

 longer commitment of funds than is typical for an agency. In some 

 cases, funding may be necessary for higher infrastructure and travel 

 costs. 



Those extra funds have always been difficult to appropriate, and in 

 particularly tight budgets they appear as direct reductions in domestic 



