*** 9709909 Because of the world-wide nature of modern science and engineering, it has become essential for U.S. scientists and engineers, as well as their professional organizations, to remain in close touch with the activities and plans of their foreign counterparts, in part as a means to facilitate the development of collaborative programs. Additionally, gaining a better understanding of many important problems, such as those associated with the global environment, data quality and access, and the training and utilization of research personnel, require cooperative efforts on a multilateral basis. An increasing number of such problems either cut across, or transcend, individual scientific disciplines. The oldest and most extensive mechanism for facilitating world-wide communication between U.S. scientists and engineers and their foreign counterparts is the array of non-governmental international disciplinary unions and cross-disciplinary committees that together comprise the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), a multilateral organization comprised of non-governmental adhering organizations in over 90 countries. This award will permit the National Academy of Sciences to continue to manage U.S. participation in the ICSU complex. It provides dues payments to ICSU and 20 international disciplinary unions, and funds to support the activities of the 21 committees of U.S. scientists and engineers who represent U.S. interests in ICSU and its disciplinary unions.
