*EPF516 05/05/00
Clinton to Proclaim Science and Technology Week
(Activities celebrate globalization of science) (800)
By Jim Fuller
Washington File Science Writer
Washington -- President Clinton is scheduled to proclaim May 7-13 as "Global Science and Technology Week" to emphasize the importance of international scientific collaboration and recognize the international diversity of scientists in the United States.
White House Science Advisor Neal Lane says the week will celebrate the "globalization" of science, which refers to the expanding opportunity for the world's best scientific minds to transcend national boundaries and "to collaborate on new discoveries and on problems facing our global society -- poverty, disease, pollution and sustainable energy production."
"All people, not just Americans, share these concerns and international collaboration allows us to transcend national boundaries to develop common solutions," Lane said in a recent letter to the American Forum for Global Education, a private, non-profit organization that sponsors programs to help young people understand global issues.
Lane also emphasized that international scientific cooperation supports U.S. foreign policy goals and national security objectives. "When relations between countries are strained, scientific cooperation surmounts political barriers to enable expanded communication and partnership."
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in a recent report on the benefits of scientific collaboration, said that scientific lines of communication remained open even during the chilliest periods of the Cold War, and that the ties maintained between U.S. scientists and their counterparts in the Soviet Union were of substantial value in promoting the transition to warmer relations.
Global Science and Technology Week will include a number of activities to infuse an appreciation for the global nature of science in young people and help them recognize the international diversity of scientists within their own country. Lane is scheduled to participate in the activities -- delivering remarks on the international nature of science at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a science competition bringing together 1,200 secondary school students from 40 countries.
The activities will also include the distribution of a special publication -- entitled "Issues in Global Education" -- to secondary school educators across the country. The publication includes articles and classroom exercises on the benefits of international scientific collaboration and how the United States is preparing future generations to participate in the global scientific community.
According to an OSTP background paper, the internationalization of science has expanded rapidly in recent decades. The percentage of scientific papers with authors from more than one country increased 200 percent from 1981 to 1995, and international collaboration accounted for almost one-third of all co-authored articles in 1997. Scientific meetings draw attendees from around the world.
The increase in international collaboration can be seen in the development of major science projects, such as the International Space Station, where the United States is partnering with 15 other nations to build and operate a world-class research center in the unique environment of space. Another example is the Human Genome Project in which scientists in the United States and five other European and Asian nations are working together to map the approximately 100,000 genes of the human genome -- which will help reveal the basis of genetic diseases such as muscular dystrophy and Alzheimer's.
Perhaps no area has contributed more to the globalization of science than information technology (IT), enabling the instantaneous transmission of data and ideas around the world. One educational tool capitalizing on IT is provided by the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program -- a network of students and teachers from over 8,000 schools in more than 85 countries working with research scientists to study and understand the global environment.
Observing that young people have a great opportunity to advance international scientific cooperation, Lane said IT "is providing your 'Internet generation' with the potential for communicating with counterparts worldwide. I encourage you to nurture these possibilities ... as you search for answers to scientific puzzles throughout your education and your career."
Global Science and Technology Week is also intended to recognize the unique internationally diverse "melting pot" of scientists working in the United States. For example, almost 50 percent of all foreign students that received U.S. Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees in science and engineering during 1990-1991 were still residing in the United States nearly five years later. In 1998, Chinese and Indian engineers, most of whom arrived in the United States after 1970 to pursue graduate studies, were senior executives at one-quarter of Silicon Valley's new technology businesses.
According to OSTP, those foreign-born scientists and engineers who return to their home countries after studying or working in the United States provide lifelong bridges to the science and economic development that occurs abroad.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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