Global Science Needs Better `International Marketplaces'

Editor's Note: Jesse H. Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at New York's Rockefeller University, is concerned about the challenges facing the international science community as it moves toward the 21st century and beyond. He expressed these concerns last month in a Washington, D.C., address before the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP), a panel created by the national academies of sciences and engineering and the Institute of Medicine. Central to Ausubel's apprehensions regarding the global scientific community are some very serious problems facing United States science; in his talk he cited, for example, the soaring costs of research, the confused mission of the country's national laboratories, uncontrolled growth of its academic research enterprise, and the dubious track record of its industrial research sector. Ausubel believes that recent debates surrounding the superconducting supercollider and space station Freedom have boldly underscored the fact that frustrating challenges and conflicting interests do indeed exist--and that the pursuit of remedies through productive dialogue is a matter of consequence and urgency. To a great extent, he noted in his talk, the problems are byproducts of U.S. science's increasing involvement in a much larger arena: the global research community, which he elects to term "Science International." If America now suffers these problems, Ausubel believes, so, in one way or another, do all other nations. And progress toward resolution, he contends, can be achieved only through the establishment of dynamic, effective international organizations--both governmental and nongovernmental--that are chartered to address them within a global context. The following essay is drawn from his talk before the committee. Science has lived until now with ad hoc arrangements for international dealings in each of its fields. The time has come to create better meeting places for all concerned-- marketplaces, in a sense--in which potential participants in international scientific cooperation can gather, trade information, and, should they so choose, do business. We do not need to create bureaucracies to create science internationally, but as the volume of global transactions in science increases, we need frameworks that allow us to conduct our affairs reliably and efficiently. In referring to the global science community, I choose to use the term "Science International." This phrase, which happens also to be the name of the newsletter of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), sounds stronger than the more common reference, "international science." And--perhaps because it echoes the term "Socialist International"--it even sounds somewhat conspiratorial. It should: Science, worldwide, is a single cognitive formation, and always has been. Of course, over time, the locations of its clubhouses have changed. At one time, the largest were in Athens and Alexandria; at another in London and Leiden. Now they are in such places as La Jolla and Geneva. That Science International has historically functioned as a cognitive unity is graphically displayed in the systematic discovery of the elements of the periodic table, a process that began in the 18th century: Chemists searching from Uppsala to Edinburgh, from Transylvania to Castile, and in the New World functioned as one coherent, multinational entity. So, scientists are dual citizens--of their own countries and also of what sociologist Michael Polanyi more than 30 years ago termed "the Republic of Science." My concern here is with the role that United States scientific institutions should be playing in this planetary republic. The health of Science International is always worth examining; and it is natural to explore those factors that are impairing the health of its wealthiest, largest, and most capable subsidiary. I believe three factors dominate: Cost. In some fields (particle physics and astronomy are clear examples), research results are costing much more to obtain than ever before. Derek de Solla Price--the late, great, and usually prescient historian of science-- conjectured in 1963 that scientific results grow as the cube root of the expense of research and that costs of science would increase as the square of the number of scientists. If true, this is discouraging. However, science is a service industry, and let us hope that information technology will reduce the cost of our business, as it promises to do in other service industry sectors. If not, we have deep reasons for concern. Conjunctural crisis. We are living through one of the periods of simultaneous economic, political, and technological fluctuation that profoundly restructure the world every 50 years or so. If the society shivers, science feels it. World War II and the Cold War drew or refigured a set of institutions that have been important for science. In the U.S., they included the Atomic Energy Commission, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation. Internationally, they included the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. These organizations generated tens of billions of dollars for science and successfully justified the expenditures in the political system. As the missions of all these organizations come into question, science looks for new patrons, partners, and goals. Overcapacity of the U.S. scientific infrastructure. Although it is unpopular to say it--especially in the halls of the National Academy of Sciences--I believe we now suffer from overcapacity in the nation's R&D establishment. I refer to the three major performers of research--government, industry, and academia. In government, the most easily recognizable excess is associated with the $20 billion set of national laboratories. It is hard for anyone to argue that those labs are now responding to felt needs or opportunities. Meanwhile, although industry is frequently criticized for underinvestment in R&D, one cannot overlook, for example, the mismatch now apparent in the pharmaceutical industry. The 10 or so of this sector's largest firms support enormous in-house R&D efforts; those giant firms are producing few new products or insights of significance while, fortunately, some 1,400 U.S. biotech firms are bubbling with ideas. As for America's universities, their population and research activities have expanded to the point at which they now are financially dependent for survival on the export of services and the import of talent. If other nations truly begin to compete in advanced research and graduate education, U.S. universities may experience in the next 50 years some of the pains stemming from the imprudent growth and uneven product quality that our steel and auto industries have suffered in the past 50. Given the pressures of rising costs, conjunctural change, and overcapacity, it is appropriate that Americans examine the framework that supports Science International. We must explore the implications of these factors for individual disciplines, programs, and projects; strategies for individual institutions; and the restructuring of national scientific enterprises. In this context, I suggest that there are two paramount, long-term needs that NAS can play a major role in addressing. On one hand, there is the need for nongovernmental organizations that are able to convene scientists from around the globe as individual experts and also in professional groupings, generally established according to scientific discipline. On the other hand, there is the need for a mechanism to bring together the individuals within national governments who control the bulk of the resources for science. An appropriate point of departure for considering the international nongovernmental structure in science is the Paris-based International Council of Scientific Unions. ICSU, established in 1931, is an organization of organizations. It includes 23 international scientific unions, which are largely disciplinary, and 92 national bodies, which are academies of sciences and like organizations. ICSU also operates some 20 interdisciplinary bodies in fields such as water and ocean research. ICSU shows promise of progressing as an effective mechanism for convening and networking the international scientific community. In principle, ICSU connects hundreds of thousands of scientists worldwide; in practice, few scientists know of ICSU itself, although many know particular adhering organizations. At the same time, familiarity with ICSU is growing among its principal partners, national governments, and international organizations. The main reason is ICSU's contributions to the development of global research programs in the field of environment. ICSU must continue to demonstrate its utility. The best way is to expand its role in both assisting the formation of policies and plans for scientific research and education within the scientific community itself and in providing scientific information and advice to governments and industry for policy-making. A useful proposal is for ICSU to carry out a comprehensive, globally consistent study on human resource flows in science and engineering. Such a study requires participation by the science and engineering communities in all countries; it must address the professional interests of the participants; and it must serve governments, industry, and intergovernmental organizations. If ICSU is to grow into the international counterpart of the National Research Council, it will be through testing itself on such substantial questions of science and technology policy as international flows of talent. Even as ICSU grows--particularly as ICSU grows--a serious evaluation of that organization is needed. ICSU has not matched its accomplishments in environment in other fields-- for example, genetics and high-energy physics. It also has weak links in engineering, medicine, and the social sciences. A 12-member executive board with elected officers now governs ICSU. The nature of the roles and commitment of its elected officers, potentially key spokespersons for the international scientific community, must be reconsidered. The positions of president and secretary- general of ICSU should probably become full-time, compensated positions, and the other officers should probably become part-time compensated positions. Consideration must also be given to enlarging the organization's small, permanent secretariat (now only seven persons) and, perhaps, to changing and decentralizing it. ICSU must also reinforce relationships with nongovernmental scientific organizations that are, or can be, strong in geographic regions or other meaningful subsets of the world community. These include the Third World Academy of Sciences, the African Academy of Sciences, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, as well as Academia Europaea and other nongovernmental scientific organizations emerging on the European level. Science International also must be able to reach out to organizations that are effective in concentrating global talent in engineering and technology. (The rapidly growing Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences [CAETS], which assembles national academies of engineering and like organizations, shows great promise in this regard.) More broadly, the bridges between international science and international industry need to be enhanced. Industrial organizations share concerns with the scientific community ranging from mathematics, science, and engineering education at all levels, through environmental quality, to such matters as the disposition of pharmaceutical products that are critically needed in developing countries but for which market demand may not support a supplier's cost of development and distribution. Former NAS foreign secretary Walter Rosenblith raised many of these issues in a pair of ICSU conferences on "International Science and Its Partners" held at Ringberg, Germany, in 1985, and in Visegrad, Hungary, in 1990. Momentum for further analysis and action needs to be regained. Now is the time to consider, comprehensively, the hierarchy, or perhaps network, of effective organ- izations, including national associations for the advancement of science, national academies of sciences, regional institutions, and global organizations that are ultimately required for effectiveness at the global level. I am unaware of any well- drawn visions of the nongovernmental side of Science International. The Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government made a few rough sketches, as has NAS from time to time. The American scientific community, singly and in cooperation with its counterparts, should try depicting some visions more fully and identify the steps needed over the next 10 to 20 years to achieve them. The exercise will involve abstract debate about models of consent, rationality, and decision-making; it also will involve haggling over specific issues, including membership, financing arrangements, and bylaws. The question of ICSU's counterpart on the intergovernmental side is more difficult. The leading figures for science in each national government can include a minister for science and technology, the president of a national science foundation or research council, a science and technology adviser to the president or prime minister, and others. There is at present no congenial and constructive context in which these individuals, representing at least the 20 or so leading scientific powers, regularly convene. I see at least four possibilities to create such an organization: Make the "S" in UNESCO work better. Over the last couple of decades, the leading governmental figures in science have rarely used UNESCO as the venue for their high-level consultations. Take the "S" out of UNESCO and form a new science organization within the United Nations context. The success of the World Meteorological Organization demonstrates that it is possible to sustain a high-quality, technically oriented institution within the U.N. system. Start a new intergovernmental organization for science. Such an organization could nucleate around the quasi- periodic meetings of heads of major national science foundations or science and technology advisers to heads of state. One of the promising consequences of the Carnegie Commission has been the formation of the "Carnegie Group" of science advisers, including the science advisers of the G-7 nations, Russia, and the top science and technology figures in the European Union. This group, however, does not include Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Israel, China, India, or Brazil, to name a few, all of which are significant members of Science International. Another entity around which to build productive intergovernmental exchange is the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)--the "economic club" of the 30 or so leading industrialized nations--which has established a "Forum on Megascience." Unfortunately, China, India, and Brazil do not belong to OECD, either. Form a "bicameral ICSU," as proposed by Robert M. White, president of the U.S. Academy of Engineering, more than a decade ago. In this model, ICSU would have a "governmental council" of its own. The World Conservation Union in Geneva- -the leading international organization for biodiversity preservation--is an example of an international group that has a governmental council as well as a nongovernmental structure. This organization, while predominantly nongovernmental, nevertheless has some 60 "state" members that pay dues; its dual character has enhanced its ability to stimulate intergovernmental action and conventions in areas such as protection of endangered species. Each of these options and others should be explored thoroughly. In any case, the broad question of science in the U.N. system is badly overdue for examination. Science and technology have again come to the fore in the U.N. because of interest in sustainable development. The U.N. is not, however, carrying out its ongoing reorganization with attention to science and technology per se. But consideration of the U.N. will probably not be fruitful except in a larger context embracing NATO, OECD, the European Union, and other intergovernmental organizations important to science--and all currently in turmoil. Now is the right time to begin to set in place the infrastructure for Science International for the next 50 years--for the science of the 8 billion who will inhabit the planet by 2020, and for the billions more who will follow. There is no alternative for solving many of our the globe's problems than to do more and better science, and, if nothing everyone needs to be prepared for the costs. Some fields, such as international agricultural research, have established mechanisms to debate priorities, evaluate performance, and improve dialogue among researchers, funders, and potential practitioners. Many others have not. To define the set of needed changes and build support for them, Science International should explore, with government and industry, the creation of a major international commission to assess and make recommendations about the global infrastructure of science, both nongovernmental and governmental, across all fields. Such a commission needs to be independent of ICSU and the U.N. system, in part because it must examine and address these bodies. The U.S. scientific community can do much to set the process in motion. Moreover, a comprehensive, ambitious, long-range review of the international infrastructure for Science International can succeed only if the U.S. science and technology community and the U.S. government provide strong support. We, as citizens of both Science International and America, have much to gain. Jesse H. Ausubel is director of Rockefeller University's Program for the Human Environment.

Global Science Needs Better `International Marketplaces'

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