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190 SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL COOPERATION 



within a scientific community without national frontiers. Totalitarian 

 regimes in Europe subsequently led to an influx of scientific leaders to 

 the United States; World War II provided a great impetus for further 

 advances in science and technology. The center of the scieniific uni- 

 verse shifted more and more to North America. Still, the traditions 

 and values of the great centers of training and research in Western Eu- 

 rope remained attractive to young American scientists in the postwar 

 years. And U.S. governmental agencies, particularly those concerned 

 with defense and health matters, supported the research and training 

 of European scientists. The International Scientific Unions were 

 strengthened and provided increased leadership in organizing and 

 managing cooperative international research programs. New govern- 

 mental institutions and associations were established: the Organisa- 

 tion for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the North 

 Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the European Communi- 

 ties, providing a basis for a broadened international community of 

 scientists that today encompasses the advanced countries of North 

 America, Europe, and the Far East. 



For any given country, the interdependence between the domestic 

 elements and particularly the foreign elements of the scientific com- 

 munity is critical. The capacity of its graduate and postdoctoral scien- 

 tists and engineers to benefit from lively cooperative and competitive 

 cross-country interaction is dependent on the competence of the do- 

 mestic research and training system that has earlier shaped them. 

 And, at the same time, the dynamism of that system continually 

 draws on feedback from its own scientific "returnees" and on interac- 

 tion with the foreign fellows in its own laboratories. 



Lively reciprocity is a key factor in the exchange. But, over the past 

 quarter century a number of inhibiting factors have appeared on the 

 U.S. scene that discourage international mobility — in contrast to that 

 first half of the century when the United States drew heavily on the 

 Western European scientific community. It is a truism to say that, with 

 the world scientific and technological community based on wide- 

 spread interactions, we cannot afford to draw away from stimulating 

 and supporting our graduate and postdoctoral scientists to initiate ca- 

 reers abroad. Enhanced by the challenges of working with foreign col- 

 leagues, these people are prime candidates for leadership in our aca- 

 demic, governmental, and industrial institutions. 



Within this perspective we shall trace through some of the factors 

 influencing U.S. graduate student and postdoctoral exchanges in the 

 natural sciences during the past 30 years. Particular attention will be 

 given to National Science Foundation (NSF) programs and the Ful- 

 bright Senior Scholar Program, as well as to activities sponsored by 



