Many of the recommendations in Chapters 3 through 6 that follow can be seen as parts of national policies for the promotion of science and technology. Recommendations on human-resource development, institution-building for science and technology, establishing new modes of cooperation for the private and public domains, and the generation of new funding mechanisms will all require support from a nation's leaders, both in and out of government. There is a need to provide a coherent framework for these actions. In each nation, a national S&T strategy should be developed by the government in consultation with scientific, engineering, and medical academies; the professional societies of the country; and its industrial sector. The strategy should benefit from the experiences of other countries, and it should spell out the government's commitments to funding; standards of excellence; openness and dissemination of knowledge; regional consortia and networks; private-public interactions; and partnerships with others - locally, regionally, and globally. (See Box 10 for a description of an ambitious strategy in China to upgrade its S&T enterprise.)

The practice of science in particular cannot be undertaken without a profound adherence to what has been called the values of science - a commitment to truth and honor, a certain constructive dissent among scientists, and the arbitration of disputes through rigorous methods.

But science is seldom left only to the scientists. Research-agenda priorities derive not just from the wishes of scientists or their interest in certain problems but also from factors such as national needs, the availability of funding, access to tools of research, and the commercial prospects for deploying the resulting technologies. What gets studied, in effect, is often decided by nonscientists. Some governments' restrictions on certain biological research areas, for example, or a nation's response to the unavailability of industrial funding for specific (often long-term) areas of research and development with limited commercial payback, are instances of how governments deploy scientific capacity in research in response to societal goals.

The application of science for utilitarian purposes, however, usually depends on earlier basic research that was driven by scientists' intellectual curiosity. Allowing some space to satisfy this drive, therefore, should be an element of any program to increase capacity building in S&T and maintain its productivity over the long term.

The exact balance between basic, strategic, applied, and adaptive research will vary from country to country, as will the domains in which the resources and talents should be deployed. However, it is becoming increasingly evident that old classifications between basic and applied, as well as the boundaries between traditional disciplines, are being overtaken by events. New S&T research increasingly involves multiple disciplines and often requires conceptual and applied skills alike.

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