Good morning and welcome to this program cosponsored by the U.S. Embassy’s Office of Public Affairs and the French American Foundation on science and technology cooperation between France and the United States. My name is Anita Eisenstadt and I work at the U.S. State Department. 

I am very pleased to see that so many of you share an interest in science and technology. 
 

I would like to provide you an overview of U.S.-French cooperation in scientific research, and summarize some of the highlights of our cooperation in the areas of energy, health and marine research.  I am delighted that my two of my colleagues, William Barry, the NASA European Representative, and David Stonner, the Head of the National Science Foundation’s Europe Office, could join me today and they will tell you more about cooperation between their agencies and their French counterparts.

• I am currently on a temporary assignment to the science section of the U.S. Embassy Paris but I typically work in the State Department’s Office of Science and Technology Cooperation in Washington DC.  My portfolio includes promoting bilateral scientific cooperation with France and science issues at the OECD. STC promotes international science and technology cooperation and U.S. foreign science policy in both bilateral and multilateral for a

• Before I specifically address our cooperation with France, I want to make a general comment about the importance of international cooperation in science.  The U.S. recognizes that science is a global endeavor and that it is essential to strengthen international partnerships to accelerate the progress of science and address global challenges such as climate change and energy security. 

• France has a long-standing history of bilateral scientific and technological cooperation with the United States.  Many U.S. federal agencies currently fund U.S. participation in cooperative research with French scientists in many of the basic sciences, including global climate change, earth sciences, ICT, space, public health and medicine, biology, ocean sciences, mathematics, physics, and energy.  To give you an idea of the amount of collaboration, there are over 5000 joint French-American publications every year. 
• Bilateral cooperation in energy research has been particularly strong.  To give you an idea of how strong our cooperation in energy research is with France, Embassy Paris reports that approximately 2,000 DOE officials, as well as U.S. lab scientists and engineers visit France annually. France relies much more heavily on nuclear power for its energy than the U.S. and we can learn a lot from our French counterparts.   Our regulatory agencies cooperate on everything from security to safety and sharing of best practices. Areva is the largest nuclear supplier company in the U.S., and is building a mixed oxide fuel plant in the States to turn surplus weapons plutonium into civilian nuclear power reactor fuel. 

• The Department of Energy has a Memorandum of Understanding with France’s CNRS (say, n, er, s), the National Center for Scientific Research, to cooperate in scientific research and development, including the basic sciences, computer science and information technology, high energy physics, life sciences, nuclear physics and particle astrophysics.  DOE also has an Agreement with France’s Atomic Energy Commission (Commissariat à’Énergie Atomique) to cooperate in fundamental science (primarily in the field of physics) supporting stockpile stewardship. 

• France and the U.S. also cooperate on energy issues in several multilateral fora.  We are both participants in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.    This program is designed to accelerate development and deployment of advanced  fuel cycle technologies and to reduce the risk of nonproliferation by encouraging the use of nuclear energy as a clean development technology.   Cadarache, France will be the site of the new huge ITER magnetic fusion experimental reactor.  ITER, the world’ s first experiment capable of sustaining burning plasmas, represents the major collaborative activity for fusion energy between the U.S. and France, along with other partners.  The United States plans to participate in the construction and operation of this world-class scientific facility.  

• In addition to the high level of cooperation in energy, health is another area of vibrant cooperation.  Dr. Zerhouni, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, received the Legion d’Honneur (the French National Order of the Legion of Honor) from President Sarkozy in April of this year for his efforts to promote cooperation between the United States and France.    Over 150 French bioMedical researchers are currently conducting research at NIH laboratories and NIH has total annual expenditures of about 15 million dollars on collaborative research with French researchers.  A large percentage of this cooperation is with INSERM.  These projects span the priorities of 16 NIH Institutes.