Growing Isolationism in U.S. Science - An International ProblemThe rise in scientific isolationism in the United States is harmful to international science and engineering, and to America's own research enterprise. This was the message of a panel discussion held at last June's International Symposium on Technology and Society, Worcester MA (http://www.wpi.edu/News/Conf/ISTAS/worcester.html). This was the annual meeting of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Society on Social Implications of Technology. Joe Herkert, a professor from North Carolina State University and former president of the Society, moderated the session. Four speakers described the effects of the war on terror on the international research enterprise. Irving Lerch, just-retired head of international programs for the American Physical Society, lamented the rise of "scientific isolationism" in the US. He described troubling examples of growing impediments to international scientific exchange in the US. These include difficulties faced by many non-US scientists and science students in obtaining visas to study and work in the US, resulting in a decline in enrolments of overseas students in US universities and endangering important international research collaborations. Other examples include restrictions on non-citizens seeking to visit to US government laboratories, "draconian classification procedures that threaten to restrict the distribution of scientific information", and "unprecedented interference" by the government in the publication of research journals related to overseas authors. At the same time, Lerch maintained, the need of the US scientific enterprise to reach out to international colleagues is greater than ever. As a fraction of the global scientific output, US contributions are declining, presently to about 30% of all science and engineering papers published worldwide. By contrast, the number of contributions from European and Asian countries is increasing steadily. Every year since 1995, European investigators have contributed more science and engineering papers than their US colleagues. Kenneth R. Foster (University of Pennsylvania) expanded on one of Lerch's examples: U.S. government restrictions on publication of scientific papers recently extended to scientific collaboration itself. This saga began shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when the IEEE, after reviewing US laws regarding trade embargoes, essentially withdrew all member services to members in embargoed countries (including Cuba, North Korea, Iran, until recently Sudan and Libya). The IEEE, unannounced, stopped publishing papers from authors in these countries pending a ruling by the U.S. Treasury Department. A subsequent series of rulings by the Treasury Department created confusion and anxiety among scientific and other scholarly societies. The first ruling (Sept. 2003) said that journals can publish papers from authors from embargoed countries, but could not "edit" them (or even correct their English) without a license. A later ruling (April 2004) allowed limited editing but forbids "collaborative interactions" between authors in embargoed countries and US scholars that result in co-authorship. Needless to say, many jointly authored papers appear every year (more than 200 in 2003 with US and Iranian co-authors). The ruling, obviously, criminalizes a great many American scientists. Just recently (December 2004) the publication issue came to a happy end. The US Treasury issued a "general license" that allows "U.S. persons to freely engage in most ordinary publishing activities with persons in Cuba, Iran and Sudan". Other impediments to international scientific collaboration remain to be addressed. Swami Laxminarayan (Idaho State University), long familiar to readers of this newsletter, contributed a fine presentation on "panics and policy perturbations" of globalization, focusing on the important work of IFMBE in fostering international collaboration. The European Union, he said, is taking steps to ease visits by researchers from other parts of the world "at a time when the United States is going in the opposite direction". Finally, Susan Hassler, editor of IEEE Spectrum, gave a historical perspective to the problem. Security concerns have always affected US science and engineering, for example leading to efforts during the Cold War to limit the flow of information of potential strategic use to scientists in the Former Soviet Union. Some aspects of government meddling with science are new, Hassler pointed out, and new information technologies are opening up new possibilities for more government meddling with science in the future. Speaking for myself, I think that this kind of interference with science has little potential benefit to national security, and it can do great harm to the international scientific and engineering enterprise. This is not a domestic American issue at all, but should attract the attention of all scientists and engineers worldwide.
Kenneth R. Foster
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