trends in efforts to promote sustainable knowledge-based economies, and mechanisms to expand scientist-to-scientist cooperation of mutual interest. Such an initiative should be targeted on topics wherein U.S. specialists are uniquely positioned to complement East European interaction with European colleagues. The costs need not be high, with travel costs being the primary expense. The scientific and political payoff from such high-visibility U.S. interest in the region should be substantial.

While the efforts of the NAS and other organizations to stimulate collaboration are important, the cornerstones of effective cooperation will continue to be direct contacts between individual scientists who are interested in working with their international colleagues. If the interest is strong and the ideas are sound, they need only limited help in working across the ocean. They are ready to design the programs; and as they have done in the past, they will play leading roles in finding the means to carry out their programs.