Challenges and Imperatives of International Scientific Cooperation : Working with the InterAcademy Partnership

The importance of international scientific cooperation cannot be overstated in these challenging times for science and scientists globally. I will describe some of the imperatives for US scientists to collaborate internationally, and some of the challenges to science and international science collaboration. The scientific community, including national academies can cooperate to ensure communication among scientists when other means of communication become difficult between nations. In particular, the InterAcademy Partnership ( IAP ) is the global network of over 140 academies of science, medicine and engineering dedicated to scientific cooperation, providing independent and credible advice to policy makers and to strengthening the role of academies nationally,~regionally and globally. As one of the six co-chairs of IAP, I will describe what it does and some of its accomplishments.