The Moscow-based International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) coordinates Russian research collaborations with Western organizations and promotes commercialization of Russian discoveries and technologies. This accurate but colorless description hides what gives ISTC far more import: its role as risk manager tasked with preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Among science institutions, ISTC is a kind of best-kept secret. With a staff of around 170 (Russians plus a few westerners) ISTC caters to an A-list clientele, including the US Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and Department of Agriculture (USDA), and multinational companies such as Boeing, General Atomic, BASF, Bayer, and Samsung.
By dint of its no-nonsense R&D project oversight, ISTC has become a gateway to the expertise of thousands of scientists in more than 700 institutes in Russia and six other former Soviet republics. And not by accident, ISTC keeps those scientists employed. The US, EU, and Japanese governments ...
