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WASHINGTON NEWS NSF Seeks International Materials Research Collaborations, Part I The National Science Foundation (NSF) is expanding its efforts to fund collaborations between U.S. materials researchers and their counterparts in other countries. The agency’s goal is not only to enhance international cooperation in materials research, but also to help researchers to grow more familiar with their overseas—and other North and South American—counterparts. Such efforts are bound to aid the progress of materials research in the United States, according to Tom Weber, director of NSF’s Division of Materials Research (DMR), who has primary responsibility for the efforts. He said that materials researchers in other countries command greater expertise in some areas than their U.S. counterparts and therefore can help to advance research here. For example, European researchers have far greater access to neutron facilities. Weber said that NSF’s efforts are meant to parallel the extensive international cooperation that has gone on in other disciplines such as astronomy and particle physics. “We’re saying that materials research is an international endeavor, and we’re attempting to make more available the means of collaborating,” he said. Although NSF’s attempts to forge closer ties with materials research activities in other countries have been continuing for nearly six years (the first workshop, for U.S., Mexican, and Canadian researchers, was held in May 1995), only one formal agreement has been completed so far, with the European Community (EC). Based on the NSF-EC agreement, the agency last year issued its first two calls for proposals for international collaborations. Twelve proposals were submitted during the summer, and about 25 more were received by NSF last fall. Of the first batch, one project was funded, and the second batch is still under review by an NSF group consisting of representatives from the Directorates for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Engineering, and International Programs. Discussions are ongoing between NSF and counterpart agencies in several other countries, Weber said, including Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, as well as countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. NSF is “close to closure” with Canada and Mexico (discussions with those two countries were completed at a meeting in Ottawa last December). No agreements have yet been reached with any of the other countries. “It’s a long process to get these [efforts] on parallel tracks,” he said. Weber attributes part of the problem to the differences in administrative proceMRS BULLETIN/MARCH 2001
dures and traditions among the countries, and in legal issues surrounding intellectualproperty rights. For example, he said that NSF’s European counterparts were “amazed that we were sending our proposals out for review. In Brussels, the reviewers must come in, such are worries that people might steal ideas and proposals.” Weber said that if delays continue in the agreement process with other countries, NSF might consider inviting U.S. researchers to fi
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