Global Scale Projects

Global-Scale Projects and Research Networks

The National Science Foundation plays a lead role in more than two dozen international-scale projects and is a major participant in many others. The Foundation provides substantial financial support for these projects and the Foundation's senior management and staff play major roles in shaping, managing, and coordinating the programs in both national and international contexts. The following gives an overview of the major international initiatives undertaken or supported by the NSF.

One of the largest and most extensive internationally coordinated research programs ever undertaken,the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), involves major resource commitments from ten US government agencies, about 1.7 billion. Created as a Presidential Initiative in 1989 and formalized in 1990 by the Global Change Research Act of 1990, since that time global change research has remained a key science initiative. Continuing to improve scientific understanding of the Earth system is a priority of the National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.

USGCRP scientists coordinate many of their programs with those of their counterparts in other countries to aggregate the scientific and financial resources needed for the study of global processes on a cohesive and comprehensive basis. This coordination is achieved through a series of global and regional programs. Some of the most important of these international connections are identified in Our Changing Planet (FY2002), the latest in a series of yearly reports on the USGCRP that accompany the President's Annual Budget. Also, the US Global Change Research Information Office (GCRIO) provides access to data and information on global environmental change research and global change related educational resources on behalf of the USGCRP

The Foundation's Global Change Research Program supports research to advance fundamental understanding of dynamic physical, biological, and socioeconomic systems and the interactions among them. The programs encourage interdisciplinary activities with particular focus on Earth system processes and the consequences of change.

NSF's Office of Polar Programs (OPP) supports the the Polar UV Radiation Monitoring Network, a high-latitude network of scanning spectroradiometers operated since 1988 at three sites in Antarctica (McMurdo Station, Palmer Station, and South Pole Station), two sites in the US ( Barrow, Alaska and San Diego, California),and one site in Ushuaia, Argentina. Data from these sites has proved invaluable in research on the effects of increased UV radiation due to ozone depletion.

ushusia

LEFT: The Ushusia instrument is installed in the roof of the main CADIC building and is surrounded by mountains ranging in elevation from 2.5° (at bearings of 120° - 206°) to 17° (at bearings of 298° - 302°). Progress on global change research topics would be impossible without advanced instrumentation.

For example, the NSF Polar UV Monitoring Network is made up of six SUV-100 scanning spectroradiometers.

The Ushuaia, Argentina installation, the fourth system added to the network, is located near the southern port city of Ushuaia, Argentina, at the Centro Austral de Investigaciones Cientificas (CADIC) facility. CADIC is a regional research center of the National Research Council of Argentina (CONICET). The installation is located in the foothills of the Andes, an area subject to frequent clouds.

In order to achieve understanding of world wide sea level changes, the NSF's global geodetic program is supported through the University NAVSTAR Consortium (UNAVCO), which has an international membership; a substantial fraction of the currently-supported projects are outside the U.S., and involve cooperation with the national geodetic agencies of other countries.

marine lifeThe primary objective of Ridge Interdisciplinary Global Experiments (RIDGE) is to understand the geological, chemical, biological, and physical oceanographic interactions between the oceans and hydrothermal circulation of seawater through the ocean crust.

The RIDGE Program was phased out recently and a new RIDGE 2000 Program took its place. RIDGE 2000 is a community-based science initiative focused on integrated geological and biological studies of the Earth-encircling mid-ocean ridge system.

Central to the RIDGE 2000 Science Plan is the recognition that the origin and evolution of life in deep-sea ecosystems are inextricable linked to, and perhaps an inevitable consequence of, the flow of energy and material from Earth's deep mantle, through the volcanic and hydrothermal systems of the oceanic crust, to the deep ocean.

The program recognizes that the complex linkages between life and planetary processes at mid-ocean ridges can only be understood through tightly integrated studies that span a broad range of disciplines and three sites have been chosen as the initial RIDGE 2000 Integrated Study sites

The four major international elements of the international global change research effort are the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Program (IHDP) and Diversitas. How humans interact with the environment, how individuals and societies can mitigate or adapt to environmental change, and how policy responses to such changes influence economic and social conditions are at the center of research on the human dimensions of global environmental change within the IHDP. Key IHDP programs underway address Land Use and Land Cover Change and the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change.

The focus of Indiana University's Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change. is a long-term study of how institutions and humans at the household and community level affect deforestation and replacement. Under the direction of anthropologists and political scientists, studies will employ satellite and aerial photo data, data bases, surveys and interviews.

NSF also plays a key role in hemispheric or regional global change research efforts, One of the three regional institutes for global change research – Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) is an intergovernmental organization with U.S. participation dedicated to global change research, to augmenting the scientific capacity of the Americas, and to providing information in a useful and timely manner to policymakers. The primary objectives of the support that the NSF provides to the IAI on behalf of the United States are to encourage comparative research and focused global change research important to the region as a whole and beyond the scope of individual national programs.

The other two regional networks, the European Network for Research in Global Change (ENRICH) and the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), were also created to facilitate the integration of global change research programs on a regional basis. The Global Change System for Analysis, Research, and Training (START) program involves developing countries more fully in global change research. See also GEO International Activities.

GCRP major international studies and experiments involving NSF support currently include:

See also:

  US GLOBEC
  The Georges Bank Study
  The North Pacific site
  The Southern Ocean site
  International GLOBE

Color Zone Coastal Scanner

In one ARCSS project, the Greenland Ice Sheet Project II (GISP2), an ice core was recovered from the Summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet where ice thickness is greater than 3000m.

In addition to the research focused on global change, NSF continues to conduct research on topics closely related to global change. In addition, many NSF-sponsored research projects consider interactions linking ecosystems and human activities with other factors including climate variability and change. Examples include the Long-term Ecological Research sites, which provide perspectives on ecological responses to climate change and other stresses: Antarctic Ecosystems; and Coastal Long-Term Ecological Research

NSF's Geosciences Directorate (GEO) also supports the interagency National Space Weather Program (NSWP), upper atmosphere research to provide timely, accurate and reliable space environment observations and forecasts. These are enriched by data from state-of-the-art facilities from Sondestrom, Greenland to Jicamarca, Peru, which provide arrays of optical and radio wave remote sensing instruments for observing and measuring changes in Earth's upper atmosphere and near-space environment.

In the lower atmosphere/ocean interface, NSF's Geosciences Directorate (GEO) supports the Global Tropospheric Chemistry Program(GTCP), a major contributor to a number of IGBP and WCRP programs, and the WCRP's Climate Variability and Predictability Program (CLIVAR). See also US CLIVAR site and International CLIVAR sites.

The NSF/GEO Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) represents a $45 million per year multinational project. In this program, about half the funds support research, and the other half, ship operations. NSF supports the major share of the program with significant contributions from eight international members representing over 20 countries. They are: Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, US, Australia/Canada/Chinese Taipei/Korea Consortium for the Ocean Drilling, European Science Foundation Consortium for the Ocean Drilling (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland), France, and the People's Republic of China. See also ODP Member Sites. Post-2003, the program will be called the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, with its own website: www.iodp.org.

CEDAR

Facilities and infrastructure for the above programs is provided through the interagency funded U.S. academic research fleet of more than two dozen vessels; a number of research aircraft; sample storage facilities for the ODP;the upper atmosphere observatories in Greenland (Kangerlussuaq (Sondre Stomfjord)) and in Peru (Jicamarca Radio Observatory).

(See photo: Optical backscattering from arctic noctilucent clouds at 85 km altitude measured with the Rayleigh lidar at Kangerlussuaq (Sondre Stomfjord), Greenland.)

Facilities supported under NSF CEDAR(Coupling Energetic and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions) include the Bear Lake Observatory in Utah, the Longyearbyen Optical Station in Norway, and the Early Polar Cap Observatory in Resolute Bay, Canada. With international collaborations from the Far East to Europe, the Center for Clouds, Chemistry, and Climatefacilities are supported as an NSF Science and Technology Center.

NSF/GEO and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) support the large deployment of facilities for the field experiment of the Fronts and Atlantic Storm-Track EXperiment (FASTEX).

The NSF/GEO Global Seismic Network (GSN) is the U.S. component of an international set of globally deployed seismographs. The United States participates with France, Japan, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada, and Italy in a federation of networks that provides shared access to seismic data. GSN is managed by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). GEO is also involved in the international system for the exchange of scientific data and information, through geographic information systems (GIS), and related activities.

NSF/OPP is charged with managing all U.S. activities in the Antarctic as a single, integrated program. NSF/OPP participates on the delegations of two Antarctic treaties: the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica for peaceful purposes and encourages international scientific collaborations and the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which regulates commercial fishing and directs scientific research to preserve the marine ecosystem.

The US Antarctic Program (USAP) maintains Antarctica as an area of international cooperation reserved for peaceful purposes, to pursue unique opportunities for scientific research to understand Antarctica and its role in global environmental systems, to protect the relatively pristine environment and its associated ecosystems, and to assure the conservation and sustainable management of the living resources in the surrounding oceans.

ITAS Program

OPP international work includes International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE), an international effort to collect and interpret a continental wide array of environmental parameters including transfer functions between the atmosphere and snow/ice interface.

Scientists from 15 countries are traversing Antarctica, collecting ice cores and gathering data that will describe climate and environmental change over the past 200 years.

US ITASE is, collecting surface and near surface snow and ice samples and conducting radar studies to determine the internal stratigraphy and bedrock topography of the terrain along a traverse in West Antarctica. (See Map: West Antarctica Showing US ITASE traverse corridors.)

One major large-scale multinational project is Man and the Biosphere Program (MAB) coordinated under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). NSF supports U.S. participation in such projects as the Biological Research Inventorying and Monitoring (BRIM) program and the Northern Sciences Network.

The Arabidopsis Genome Initiative (AGI)is a major international plant biology effort that involves more than 2,500 laboratories and 8,000 scientists worldwide using a new generation of tools to probe this plant's genome.

The AGI began in 1996, unifying the efforts of international teams who had been decoding this important genome sequence since the early 1990s. Representatives from each of the major Arabidopsis sequencing centers met at the NSF to agree on a collaborative approach. In the US, an interagency program began in 1996 with funds from NSF, the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture . The European Union, the Government of France, and the Chiba Prefectural Government in Japan similarly support AGI research.

Arabidopsis

In mid-December 2000, the first-ever complete plant genome sequence was announced as the international team completed the Arabidopsis thaliana genome sequence. (See NSF press release 00-94.) Arabidopsis thaliana had emerged as the plant counterpart of the laboratory mouse, offering clues to how all sorts of living organisms behave genetically, with potentially widespread applications for agriculture, medicine and energy.

This achievement, by the AGI international consortium of scientists became public in the journal Nature's December 14 issue, describing how researchers sequenced the entire genome of this weed in the mustard family.

For a list of the individuals worldwide who contributed to the Nature issue, see Arabidopsis Genome Initiative Contributors. Also, the Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) provides a comprehensive resource for scientific communities working withArabidopsis thaliana.

Also, in the biological sciences, the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) is a multinational effort to enhance international collaboration in basic research focused on complex mechanisms of living organisms; fields supported range from brain functions to biological functions at the molecular level.

HFSP

The Foundation and other three federal agencies contribute to the program which involves involve extensive collaboration among teams of scientists working in different countries, fellowships available to scientists who wish to work in a laboratory in another country, with emphasis on individuals early in their careers, and workshops.

In 1999, to mark the tenth anniversary of the Human Frontier Science Program, ceremonies were organized on three continents: one in Tokyo , one in Strasbourg, and a third in Washington in December 1999.

The 10th Anniversary brochure captures outstanding achievements of the program over the decade, including the awarding of five Nobel Prizes to researchers from four countries (Germany, Switzerland, UK, and US) after being involved in a Human Frontier Science Program project. An essential component of the Human Frontier Science is " Intercontinentality" Between 1990 and 1998, 372 research grants were awarded. In most cases, cooperation extended to three, four or five laboratories, situated in as many countries, linking up as many as four continents in a common research effort. Four-fifths of the projects involved two or more continents—and a third at least three continents.

The NSF/BIO supports the Protein Data Bank (PDB), the single worldwide repository for the processing and distribution of 3-D biological macromolecular structure data. The NIH, DOE and the NSF fund the PDB, managed by the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB), a consortium comprised of: Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)

The PDB allows for complex queries and facilitates access to other databases through linkage and integration. In addition to PDB partner sites in the US, PDB supports sites in the UK, Singapore, Japan, and Brazil, and updates for sites in Argentina,Australia, China France, India, Israel, Poland, and Taiwan.

NSF/BIO also supports expanding an international group of Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) Network sites. Global scientific interest in developing long-term ecological research (LTER) programs is expanding very rapidly, reflecting the increased appreciation of their importance in assessing and resolving complex environmental issues. As of May 2000, twenty-one countries had established formal national LTER programs and joined the ILTER network. Ten more were actively pursuing the establishment of national networks and many others had expressed interest in the model. Most member networks contributed to a 1998 book on the ILTER network. Country chapters may be consulted on line. There is also a table summarizing characteristics of the networks.

This group meets annually in one of the member countries. Reports of past meetings are available. The 1999 Annual International LTER Meeting was held in Kruger National Park, South Africa, August 16, 1999 There was extensive discussion of opportunities for network-wide research collaboration, including several activities coordinated by international environmental networks associated with ILTER the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS)and GTNET. (See photos from the Kruger National Park field trip.)

ilter

Members of the ILTER Network:

Other NSF/BIO large-scale projects include the interagency NeuroLab (NASA/NSF/NIH/NIMH/ONR and international partners). Neurolab is a collaborative effort of many nations of the world, responsive to the congressionally declared Decade of the Brain. A NASA Neurolab Mission in April 1998 was dedicated to neuroscience-related experiments on animals and humans.Data from the flight has not yet been analyzed. NSF/BIO expects such work will advance research on how microgravity and other features found only in space flight affect nervous systems, add to public education about neuroscience and space technology, and provide potential benefits to applied aspects of neuroscience.

Another large-scale NSF/BIO project is FLYBRAIN, an online atlas and database of the Drosophila nervous system involving Germany and Japan. Facility support and research grants to the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) a nonprofit consortium of 64 universities and research institutions in the US, Costa Rica, Perú, Canada, South Africa, México and Australia are also funded by NSF/BIO, including the Arthropods of La Selva Project (ALAS), a large-scale inventory of arthropod diversity in a lowland tropical rainforest, The project represents a collaboration not only between disciplines, but also between OTS and Costa Rica's National Biodiversity Institute (INBio).

katydid

Copiphora cf. cultricornis - one of the new species of katydids discovered by ALAS investigators

Partially supported by the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering(INT), students in OTS Duke University courses visit a series of OTS biological field stations, including the Palo Verde Research Station, in northwest Costa Rica, and the LaSelva Biological Station, one of the world's leading centers for research on tropical rainforest ecology. With advice and assistance from faculty, students design and carry out their own short research projects.

NSF/BIO funds International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups(ICBG), an interagency (NSF/NIH/USDA) activity to support "bioprospecting" for potential therapeutic agents in the context of biodiversity conservation and sustainable economic development in developing countries.


Lomatia ferruginea

A second cohort of 5-year awards was announced in FY 2000 (NIH Press Release ). Six groups of diverse private and public institutions, including universities, pharmaceutical companies and environmental organizations, will collaborate on projects in ten countries. Support for this program will total approximately $3.5 million per year over the next five years, shared among the NIH, NSF, and USDA.

As one example, the Bioactive Agents from Dryland Biodiversity of Latin America project is an extension of ICBG research begun in 1993. The project involves discovery and development of pharmaceuticals and crop-protection agents from plants and microbes of arid and semi-arid ecosystems in Chile, Argentina and Mexico. Results show promise for developing prescription medicines that may aid in treatment of infectious diseases, cardiovascular, central nervous system and gastrointestinal disorders.

Extension of the grant allows expanding into new ecosystems such as islands off the coast of Chile, parts of southern Mexico, and the Chaco area of northern Argentina The project involves participants in the US, Chile, Argentina and Mexico.

Biocomplexity in the Environment(BE)is a multi-year NSF competition designed to promote new approaches to investigating the interactivty of biota and the environment -- the interrelationships that arise when living things at all levels- from molecular structures to genes to ecosystems--interact with their environment. Researchers work in diverse fields that go beyond biology to physics, systems engineering, economics, geochemistry and others, on studies from the submolecular to mass changes in climate with potential for worldwide impact.

The FY2000 Competition supported research to advance understanding of interacting biological, physical and social systems, so that our ability to predict system behavior is enhanced (NSF Press Release 00-73). The FY 2001 Competition promoted comprehensive, integrated investigations of environmental systems using advanced scientific and engineering methods. Investigators were encouraged to adopt a global perspective .

...Investigators are encouraged to identify international research partners, as appropriate. Planning visits for groups of researchers to consider larger scale collaborative efforts may be requested, as well as support for collaboration between individuals. For some developing countries, funds for equipment as well as support for human resources development in those countries may be requested....NSF may also be interested in other means of developing support for collaborative research, education, and outreach in the topical areas of this competition....For information on international collaborative programs, see NSF 00-138.

Initial awards were announced in November 2000 to fund 12 research projects under a new Ecology of Infectious Diseases initiative. The NSF/BIO and NIH initiative supports efforts to understand the underlying ecological and biological mechanisms that govern relationships between human-induced environmental changes and the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases. (NSF Press Release 00-86) Awards include:

  • Researchers at the University of Salford (UK), together with investigators in China, France, Ireland, Japan, and the US, will study the transmission of human alveolar echinococcosis (a highly pathogenic disease resulting from infection by a tapeworm) in farming communities in China.

  • University of California (Berkeley) investigators will collaborate with investigators from South Africa to study the spread and impact of bovine tuberculosis in the African buffalo in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

  • Researchers at Case Western Reserve University, will lead a collaboration of investigators from the United States, Israel, and Kenya to research the impact of human population growth and climate variation on human infection rates by the blood fluke Schistosoma haematobium in Kenya.

In order to bring biodiversity information to the Internet, where it will be freely accessible to anyone, a consortium of 28 interested countries and intergovernmental organizations is coordinating plans to form the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). NSF/BIO senior management chairs the interim steering committee for GBIF, consisting of a series of interconnected databases containing information about the worldís living organisms, from bacteria to plants to mammals. (NSF Press Release 00-67).

For the NSF Computer & Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE), the number of large-scale multi-institutional projects with international partners continues to grow. Historically,from the early days of the NSFNET, international networking activities have helped to connect the US research and education community with academic counterparts and resources around the world.

The International Connections Management (ICM) project (1991-96) assisted about 25 countries in connecting to the NSFNET. One highlight of the ICM project was a satellite teleport gateway for Latin America in Homestead, Florida. Another was a connection for Mongolia in 1996. Among ICM's "firsts" was a 45 Mbps trans-Atlantic link to London in July, 1995 (a record-breaking capacity at that time). The link continued on at 34 Mbps to Stockholm to join NSFNET with NORDUnet. This opened the door to what are now many transoceanic fiber links at 45 and 155 Mbps.

More recently, international networking activity established the Science, Technology and Research Transit Access Point (STAR TAP) in Chicago as a persistent anchor for interconnecting NSF's very-high-performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS) with advanced networks that are dedicated to supporting high-performance applications and developing new networking technologies. By early 1999, about 15 country nets as well as the U.S. Next Generation Internet (NGI) networks and Abilene had been interconnected at STAR TAP. The High-Performance International Internet Services (HPIIS) project made awards for sharing some of the costs of the high-performance connections to TransPAC, a U.S.- Asia-Pacific consortium, to MirNET, a U.S.- Russia consortium, and to Euro-Link,a connection of European and Israeli National Research Networks (NRNs) to the high-performance vBNS and Abilene networks.

Today,STAR TAP is the premier global exchange point for advanced international networking, in support of applications, performance measuring, and technology evaluations. STAR TAP is documenting the international collaborations it helps foster. The complete set of applications as of October 20, 2000 is available by category and event. Examples of STAR TAP iGrid 2000 applications demonstrate how the power of today's research networks enables access to remote computing resources, distribution of digital media, and collaboration with distant colleagues.

Distributed Particle Physics Research
[United States and CERN]
California Institute of Technology, USA; CERN, Switzerland

Distributed Simulation Analysis between Scientists Located in Germany, USA, and Japan
[United States, Germany and Japan]
Sandia National Laboratories, USA

GiDVN: Global Internet Digital Video Network
[United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Korea, Singapore, The Netherlands, Sweden, CERN and Spain]
International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR), Northwestern University, USA

Five participants
and computers during a session in the Scalable Network Infrastructure

A session in the Scalable Network Infrastructure track featured instructors from the University of Oregon, Cisco Systems and BSDI Systems in the Netherlands. Other photos are here.

Funds from NSF and other sponsors are helping the African Network Operators Group (AFNOG) prepare African network engineers to manage email, mailing lists, World Wide Web, domain name servers and help desks as demand for services expands rapidly.

AFNOG’s first benefits emerged due to an intensive, five-day series of courses held at the University of Cape Town, South Africa in May 2000. Organizers from Ghana, Kenya and Uganda arranged for sessions led by instructors from Ghana, Togo, Mali, South Africa, the US, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. (NSF PR 00-50)

Founded in 1999, AFNOG works with the Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC), a non-profit organization that for the past decade has helped design and deploy computer networks in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East. Under an NSF/CISE award, the NSRC works in collaboration with the Advanced Network Technology Center (ANTC) at the University of Oregon to help international academic institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) gain Internet access.

The need for such grass-root efforts to bridge the international Digital Divide was affirmed at the July 2000 G-8 Economic Summit in Okinawa, Japan. The participating nations agreed to establish a Digital Opportunity Task Force to promote the adoption of information technologies in developing nations.

international flags

DLI2 International Digital Libraries Projects

Building on and extending prior Foundation efforts in digital libraries research, CISE and the Office of International Science and Engineering (INT) issued the International Digital Libraries Collaborative Research Program Solicitation NSF 99-6 intended to contribute to the fundamental knowledge required to create information systems that can operate in multiple languages, formats, media, and social and organizational contexts. Collaborative creation of new research understandings, tools and ideas exploiting the different opportunities offered by materials and technologies in use in different countries was strongly encouraged.

Also, a series of joint NSF-European Union (EU) Working Groups on Future Directions for Digital Libraries Research were set up and reported on their efforts to jointly explore technical, social and economic issues, plan common research agendas, share research results, and explore national, technical, and social expectations about digital libraries.

NSF Partnerships in digital libraries also were encouraged:

  • NSF-JISC (US-UK)
  • NSF-DFG (US-Germany)
  • NSF-EU (US-European Union)

Regarding large-scale projects, the NSF Directorate for Physical and Mathematical Sciences (MPS) supports the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG), a project to conduct a detailed study of solar internal structure and dynamics using helioseismology. (NSF Press Release 00-15)

Gong

Helioseismology utilizes waves that propagate throughout the Sun to measure, for the first time, the invisible internal structure and dynamics of a star. In order to exploit this new technique, GONG has developed a six-station network of solar velocity imagers located around the Earth to obtain continuous observations of the oscillations of the Sun. The six sites comprising the GONG Network are:

NSF/MPS, NSF/ENG, and the Office of International Science & Engineering (INT) is attempting to create an internet-based worldwide materials research network to enhance scientific and educational collaborations. With this objective, a series of international workshops have been sponsored to help stimulate enhanced collaboration among materials researchers and create networks linking the participating countries. (See also the newsletter of the International Union of Materials Research: http://iumrs.org)

World-wide Materials Network In August 2000, the U.S.-Africa Materials Workshop was held in Pretoria, South Africa to explore opportunities for US-African cooperation.

Participants focused on six thematic areas: materials education and training; civil infrastructural materials; materials characterization; the materials value chain; advanced and emerging materials; and polymers and composites. The workshop attracted more than 60 participants including about 45 from African nations.

Other regional workshops also identified possible areas for mutually beneficial collaborations.

  • U.S.-Asian Pacific Materials Research, Technology, and Education for the 21st Century in Service of Society Workshop, Hawaii, November 1998, participants from the United States and Asian Pacific countries

  • Frontiers in Materials Research, Technology and Education: A Workshop to Advance Panamerican Collaboration, Brazil, June 1998, participants from the United States and Pan American countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Venezuela

  • Workshop on Materials for Future Technologies, Belgium, December 1996, a joint National Science Foundation-European Commission venture

  • Trilateral Materials Workshop, Mexico, May 1995, researchers from the United States, Canada, and Mexico

A sixth workshop involving the Middle East countries is being explored.

As a result of the NSF-EC workshop, and as part of the implementation of an Agreement for Scientific and Technological Cooperation Between the European Community and the Government of the United States of America, the NSF entered into an implementing arrangement with a European Union program that supports materials research. Since December 1999 three "Dear Colleague" letters have been issued announcing opportunities for cooperative activities in materials research between US and European researchers to be supported by NSF and the EC.

One project under this competition, Current Induced Magnetic Switching in Sub-micron Sized Multilayers, is a joint undertaking between Michigan State University's Condensed Matter Physics - Experimental group and the Université de Paris Laboratoire de Physique des Solides in Orsay, France. The research concerns the current induced magnetic switching in sub-micron sized multilayers. This topic is of great importance both on account of its intrinsic interest, as well as for its technological relevance.


Lowering detectors into the ice cap

The Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) neutrino telescope project at South Pole Station -- a US-Sweden-Germany-Belgian collaboration, jointly supported by NSF's OPP and MPS, the Department of Energy (DOE), and several European agencies -- is the world's largest detector of the neutrino--and the first that can claim to be an astronomical instrument rather than a physics experiment. AMANDA was featured in Scientific American's "Extreme Engineering" February 2000 issue, in the article " Seven Wonders of Modern Astronomy " -- The Wierdest Wonder.

AMANDA trades sensitivity for the sheer size needed to catch high-energy neutrinos from distant objects, which include the swirling gas around black holes, the innards of stellar explosions, the decomposition of the unidentified matter that dominates our cosmos.

So far the $7-million collaboration consists of 424 glass orbs, each the size of a basketball. Scientists watch for the glow indirectly emitted when neutrinos collide with atomic nuclei in the ice or underlying rock. The orbs point downward so that Earth will screen out extraneous particles. Ultimately, scientists want 5,000 orbs on 80 cables throughout a cubic kilometer of ice. (Images: University of Wisconsin The Amanda Collaboration)


Inside the hole

The major participation of NSF's Education and Human Resources Directorate (EHR) in large-scale international efforts is through support of a series of multinational studies in education to help inform US education priorities. TIMSS 1999, a successor to the acclaimed 1995 Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), focused on the mathematics and science achievement of eighth-grade students.The TIMSS- 1999 Benchmarking Report news conference on April 4, 2001 in Washington, D.C. included remarks by the NSF Director (NSF Press Release 01-24 )

The Executive Summary shows US eighth graders performed significantly above the TIMSS international average in science, but about in the middle of the achievement distribution of the 38 participating countries (above 18 countries, similar to 5, and below 14). World class performance levels were set essentially by four Asian countries and a central European one. Chinese Taipei, Singapore, Hungary, Japan, and the Republic of Korea had the highest average performance.

The Foundation also supports U.S. participation in the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), its constituent societies, and several of its scientific committees such as the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the Special Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), the



Countries in bold also participated in the TIMSS 1995 eighth-grade assessment.

Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE). Support for these components totals about $2 million annually.

In convening a World Conference on Science for the Twenty-First Century , from 26 June to 1 July 1999 in Budapest, Hungary, ICSU and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in co-operation with other partners, provided a unique forum for discussion between the scientific community and society. The World Conference on Science was conceived as a process consisting of a preparatory phase, the Conference itself and a follow-up program on science for the twenty-first century.

 


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