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42 SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL COOPERATION 



an agency's scientific quality ranking of research projects (leaving 

 aside, for the moment, the question of how international projects can 

 be developed to the point of being competitively ranked). That is, 

 proposals above the cutoff can be funded whatever the foreign policy 

 interest because of their inherent scientific interest to the agency. Pro- 

 posals that fall near the bottom of the ranking are of little scientific 

 interest to an agency and should proceed only if there is a special for- 

 eign policy interest in having them implemented. In that case, external 

 (to the agency) funding is clearly appropriate and, in fact, essential. 

 Only those that are marginal in an agency ranking — below but near 

 the cutoff— are of interest, for they have reasonable scientific merit 

 and agency engagement. 



This logic leads to the suggestion that it should be possible to rank 

 international science and technology programs across departments 

 and agencies according to foreign policy interest. Such a ranking 

 would be compared with the independent ranking within departments 

 and agencies based on agency criteria. Projects that are marginal on 

 an agency ranking, but high on foreign policy ranking, would be 

 given an extra boost. Those marginal within the agency but low on the 

 foreign policy ranking would be dropped, while those low in agency 

 ranking, but high on foreign policy, would proceed only with funding 

 provided by the Department of State or other external source. Those 

 marginal on both scales might deserve further examination. 



Such a cross-department ranking makes sense in theory, but in 

 practice how can it be done with competence and credibility? A sepa- 

 rate agency for international science and technology cooperation 

 mentioned earlier could have been the chosen instrument, but the at- 

 tempt to create that agency did not succeed. The State Department is 

 unlikely to be able to carry out such a ranking with sufficient support 

 from technical agencies, or with adequate authority to implement the 

 results. A possibility is an interagency working group, chaired by the 

 Department of State, that could provide the locus for a govern- 

 mentwide ranking. Or, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 

 or the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) could chair 

 the group to provide more objective leadership. 



Whatever mechanism is used for "managing" agency budgets for 

 international cooperation, that will not be enough. The need for plan- 

 ning flexibility, especially for broad programs of cooperation of high 

 political value and White House interest, such as with China and the 

 Soviet Union, and the need for initial funds to define and develop 

 projects dictate a requirement for some segregated (noncompetitive) 

 funds able to be used for new international initiatives. The amounts 



