Scientific Cooperation

Cooperative Grants Program

   The CRDF's first initiative was the Cooperative Grants Program, a major competition authorized by the Board of Directors in September 1995. In response to the program announcement, the Foundation received over 3,000 research applications. They were evaluated through a rigorous peer review process that included independent screening and assignment to one of six disciplinary review panels:

• Biological and Biomedical Sciences and Engineering
• Physics
• Geological Sciences and Engineering
• Chemical Sciences and Engineering
• Mathematical, Information, and Computer Sciences
• Electrical, Materials, and Manufacturing Sciences and Engineering

   The review panels included American members from academia, government, and industry as well as FSU members from the relevant scientific and engineering disciplines. Panelists evaluated and ranked proposals based on the following criteria: performance excellence; intrinsic merit; utility; defense conversion; mutuality of benefit; and effect on the infrastructure of science and engineering.

   In September 1996 the CRDF announced the results of the competition, making awards to 281 joint U.S./FSU project teams that totaled over $11.6 million. Of that total, the Foundation contributed $9 million; government agencies in Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan contributed $2.4 million through joint funding arrangements; and $200,000 was contributed by other sources.

   Figures 5-7 show the distribution of grants by FSU country, by scientific discipline, and by discipline for individual countries. (To enlarge, click on each individual figure.)

   Cooperative Grants Program awards average $41,000 and typically support two-year projects. They include individual financial support for the FSU participants, equipment, supplies, travel funds, and a standard overhead allowance to the FSU grantee's institution. In addition, principal FSU investigators of projects that have an applied/industrial focus and former defense scientists have also received special project management training. American participants in Cooperative Grants Program projects are supported by their institutions.

   The awards support nearly 1,500 FSU scientists and engineers. Of the grantees, 31% are former defense researchers, approximately half of whom have experience in weapons of mass destruction. Some 9% are young investigators under thirty years of age.

   By the end of 1997, most projects had been active for one year, with research under way in both the United States and the FSU, and investigators from each side making visits to their counterparts' laboratories. Research results from Cooperative Grants Program projects had been reported in some 300 scientific journal articles. More than 400 abstracts, reports, and posters related to the projects had been presented at scientific meetings and conferences.

   The CRDF monitors all Cooperative Grants Program projects through quarterly technical and financial reports jointly submitted by FSU and U.S. investigators. The staff also conducts annual visits to at least 10% of FSU grantees. Interviews with project participants during site visits have highlighted the importance of the grants to the recipients. A number of grantees stated that without the funds from the CRDF, they would have been forced to give up science and seek other, better-compensated work. Other grantees reported that the awards permitted them to conduct more in-depth or broader study than they could have conducted with limited domestic support. Also, due to the collaborative nature of the projects, grantees have been able to investigate research problems using complementary approaches or to distribute the theoretical and experimental parts of the overall research effort for mutual benefit.

   With CRDF funds, grantees have purchased badly needed equipment and supplies. They have been able to invite young scientists and students to join their research teams, and in some cases, to visit the laboratories of their American collaborators. Those junior participants are gaining valuable experience and are motivated to continue their careers in science.

   Because the award selection process for the Cooperative Grants Program was merit-based, impartial, and highly competitive, successful applicants have been recognized within their own scientific communities and also within the international research community as being productive, excellent scientists. Grantees informed the CRDF that their Cooperative Grants Program awards have had the effect of attracting additional support from domestic funding agencies and from foreign and international sources.

CGP Grant List

(Selected Photos of Cooperative Grants Program Award Winners)

Young Investigators Program

   In 1997 the NSF and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) agreed to fund a supplemental program of travel grants to young American and Russian investigators participating in existing awards under the Cooperative Grants Program. The NSF and the RFBR each committed $462,000 to the Young Investigators Program and asked the CRDF to manage a competition for the funds. Awards will be announced in early 1998.

Collaborations in Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences

   In 1996 the CRDF undertook its first major activity as an agent for another organization when the NIH asked the Foundation to develop a new competitive grants program that would support joint projects between NIH in-house researchers or extramural grantees and FSU scientists.

   The CRDF responded by establishing a two-part program, Collaborations in Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences. The first part was a small competition for proposal development grants that funded individual travel or workshops to develop collaborative research proposals. Twenty awards were made. The second, major component of the program was a competition for collaborative research grants that attracted some 350 proposals. After a rigorous peer review of the proposals by panels of biomedical and behavioral sciences experts, the CRDF awarded 43 two-year research grants.

   Grant distributions by FSU country and by scientific discipline are illustrated in Figures 8 and 9. (To enlarge, click on each individual figure.)

   Awards for both phases of the Collaborations in Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences Program totaled $1.95 million. The initiator and primary sponsor, the NIH, contributed $1.3 million to finance the program. The CRDF allocated $550,000 from its budget to the awards, and the government of Ukraine contributed $100,000 to selected projects involving Ukrainian research institutions.

   The resulting projects span a wide range of topics related to human health and include collaborations with FSU researchers in four countries. Thirteen FSU researchers with defense experience are participating, eleven of whom formerly worked on the development of weapons of mass destruction.

   In 1998 the CRDF will make additional awards for projects that include scientists from Kazakhstan's Stepnogorsk defense biological research facility. The Stepnogorsk facility is the focus of a special effort by the American and Kazakh governments to redirect defense scientific and engineering resources to civilian work. The Department of State is providing $210,000 to support the additional projects.

Biomedical & Behavioral Sciences Grant List

(Selected Photos of Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences Program Award Winners)