The present call for expansion - indeed, achievement of the largest possible number - of S&T communities should enlist the abovementioned centers of excellence, located at the more advanced among the developing nations, for a fundamental role in this endeavor, both regionally and worldwide. Given their firsthand experience in overcoming many of the developing nations' typical difficulties, they are natural centers for spreading knowledge and skills to their neighbors. They should therefore commit themselves to this new enterprise by providing scholarships and opening their laboratories to talented young researchers from other developing nations. An added benefit for the latter would be an amelioration of their brain-drain problem. Their young professionals are more likely to return home from a 'South-South' exchange than from a 'South-North' one.
Brazil, China, India, South Africa, and other countries are already operating in this way, offering doctoral, postdoctoral, and visiting fellowships to scientists and engineers from developing nations in their geographic region or even from other regions. (Excellent examples are given in Boxes 23 and 24.) Some of these initiatives are carried out in partnership with the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). (See Box 25.) The International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) provides opportunities for research and training to scientists from developing nations. (See Box 26.) Such programs are especially important for S&T-developing and S&T-lagging countries.
These centers of excellence should share with neighboring countries the results of their scientific and technological cooperation with the industrialized nations and the lessons learned from the latter in nurturing young scientists and engineers. (See Box 27 for a new model for such multinational scientific cooperation.)
Industrialized nations themselves could directly impart such knowledge with efforts of their own, such as programs that establish temporary adjunct-faculty/research positions at some of their universities and laboratories for scientists and engineers from other countries, particularly the developing ones. A good precedent is a German program, in operation over the past decade, that placed Russian researchers in German institutes for three-month positions (at German salaries), whereupon they returned home. This experience, which put them at the forefront of research, could then be of benefit to their Russian colleagues as well.
A prominent example of such an effort that is graduate-student oriented, of longer duration, and located wholly within southern Africa is the Research Initiative of the University Science, Humanities, and Engineering Partnerships in Africa (USHEPiA) - a network of eight universities in Sub-Saharan Africa.14 In part to stem the brain drain and promote 'brain circulation' within the region, USHEPiA has identified and formulated a number of significant multi-institutional and multidisciplinary project proposals addressing HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, including the development of appropriate drugs using African natural resources. Participating institutions in the anticipated network, focusing on infectious diseases, would together offer world-class facilities and expertise for the training and deployment of health-science researchers. The network would be coordinated by the University of Cape Town's Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine.
USHEPiA, and other partnerships like it - the African Economic Research Consortium (Box 28), for example - focus on knowledge and how best to generate, share, and apply it to local development problems. In addition, these programs can make significant contributions to the global knowledge pool, illustrating the notion that knowledge needs to flow in all directions, including from developing nations to industrialized nations. The wealth of international expertise, when combined with strengthened local research and innovation systems, can establish a sustainable path to closing both global and local knowledge divides.
Such efforts can be complemented, and much facilitated, by the tools of new information and communications technology, which has put the S&T community in a better position than ever to make international cooperation a practical reality. In particular, scientists and engineers located anywhere can be networked for exchanging information and pursuing joint research. Information and communications technology can also play an important role in developing human resources through such institutions as virtual universities. In addition to providing mechanisms like distance-learning and video conferencing, they enable 'anytime, anywhere' access. (See Box 29 on previous page for information on a major U.S. research university's innovative program that provides course materials online.)
Special programs and support from industrialized nations and the S&T-proficient nations are especially indicated for scientists and researchers working in politically or economically troubled and war-torn areas of the globe. These professionals, often isolated from the rest of the worldwide science community, are able to provide, by virtue of their scientific training and values, local voices for modernization and science-based public policy.
