NATO HQ 10 March 2005

Video interview with the UK representative on the Science Committee, Professor Sir Brain Heap Multimedia Audio file .MP3/7040Kb Video interview Q: Sir Brian, you are the U.K. representative on the Science Committee. Thank you for joining us. Many people have asked: Why does NATO sponsor a civil science program and what does that have to do with NATO's mission? What would you respond to these questions? PROFESSOR SIR BRIAN HEAP (U.K. Representative on the Science Committee): In the early days, the NATO Science Committee was set up for the purpose of building bridges between people in the Soviet Union and the NATO Alliance countries. So its purpose really was to build bridges, and that had a very important role in enabling scientists to interact with each other in these various countries. So my major response to your question is that its role was primarily to build bridges. Of course, that has changed as time has gone on, and in recent times it's become increasingly important, with the collapse of the Cold War, that the NATO Science Committee and the NATO Science Program, should reorganize itself in a different way and consequently, in addition to the work that it does in building bridges, it's also there for the purpose of developing new approaches to the problems of international security. Q: One year ago the NATO science activity was completely restructured to focus on fostering good science to support security. As a scientist how do you feel about that? How do your colleagues in the civil science community feel about this? HEAP: I think there are two aspects to your question. First of all, as I've indicated, the present mission of NATO is focused particularly on security issues, and so as this aspect has developed, so the NATO Science Program has responded. And there are really two aspects of the NATO Science Program that are particularly important. The first is the opportunity to use new science and technology to address hard issues of security. For example, the development of new methods of detecting explosives, or new approaches to problems that are posed by the use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons. And so consequently that's one aspect of the NATO Science Program that has been developing particularly strongly in recent times. Now the second aspect is that in addition to that, in order to win minds and hearts of people in disadvantaged countries, it's particularly important to develop what we refer to as "soft security issues". Now these are ones that have to do with the question of how to make sure that people get sufficient food, what we refer to as "food security"; how to ensure that the environment is a safe environment in which to live and the pollution problems that can arise, particularly after military activities, have been attended to; and also the issue of how to look at the possibility of developing new methods of removing pollution from the environment, as well as providing the secure environments in which people can live. Now so far as my colleagues are concerned, I think that we've already recognized that we now live in changing times, particularly after 9/11, and consequently we recognize the importance of bringing science and technology to bear on these questions. And many of my colleagues have been very positive about the development of this new area. There are some, I think, who are disappointed because it no longer deals with fundamental science in the way that it is in the early days, but then there are other avenues that provide an opportunity for developing that aspect in particular. Q: What do you see as the concrete benefits of the NATO Security Through Science Program? Could you give us some specific examples of projects and activities that you feel are particularly beneficial? HEAP: Yes, I'd be happy to try to do that, because I think it's very important to make people aware of the very positive elements that are coming out of the NATO Science Program and the new science for security program. I think in the first place that I would want to emphasize that the science for the new security program has to be high quality. It isn't a reduction in the quality of the science. It's using the best science and technology that we can obtain in order to address some of the questions that I've posed previously. The particular examples that I would want to draw attention to have to do with the Science for Peace Program, which is part of this Security Through Science Program. The Science for Peace Program has been a great success. It brings together a laboratory in an Alliance country with one in a former Soviet Union country, and this match means that people have the opportunity to meet together, to exchange ideas, to visit each other's laboratories and others. But it also has another very strong and important element and that is, in the first place, the projects selected have to either have an impact on some commercial development; for instance, the possibility of developing a spin-off in one of the former Soviet Union countries. Or alternatively, it has to provide information that will feed into environmental organizations so that they can then apply this knowledge in a direct and positive way. And I think this has been one of the most successful developments in recent times because it has resulted in enabling countries that have previously not had much experience in how to transfer science into commercial application and how to identify the environmental regulatory mechanisms that you need when you're dealing with this quality of work. There's one other aspect of this program that I want to highlight, and that is that it's also provided an opportunity to introduce laboratories in former Soviet Union countries to the issue of protecting intellectual property. Now we're all very much aware there are some excellent scientists in Russia and the former Soviet Union countries. They don't... in the past they've not had a great deal of experience at how to make sure that their inventions and their new developments are actually going to benefit the source from which they came, and are going to be used in constructive ways, to build up the local economy. Q: There are many other international organizations supporting scientific collaboration and research. What is special about the NATO activity? Do you feel that there are overlap in competition with the other bodies? And do you conduct joint activities with these other bodies? HEAP: There are some special features about the NATO Security Through Science Program. In the first place, we have to remember that this is a program that brings together people in a very wide range of countries, from the west coast of the... of North America to the east coast of Russia. And this means that there's the opportunity for collaboration between many different nations, with many different cultures, many different backgrounds. That's my first point. The second point I want to emphasize, is that this is one of the few. In fact, I think it's possibly the only collaborative program that still exists between scientists in North America and Europe and greater Europe. And because it is a transatlantic program this has a special attraction and it's something that NATO should be very proud of, that we... that NATO has been able to develop this in such a positive way. So these are strong elements of the program that are different from any other scientific program that I'm aware of. Now, in addition to that, of course, there is a lot of activity, as you well know, in the European Union, and people do ask, are there overlaps, is there duplications? And we do take great care on the NATO Science Committee to ensure that we're not duplicating, but we are complementary in the work that we do. There are differences between the work that we do in that, as I've indicated, ours is a transatlantic program and has a much wider range. It also is a program that funds, at a relatively low level of funding, but with the purpose of actually helping to leverage further funds in the countries in question to enable them to get their governments to give additional support. Where there are potential areas of duplications, then we have discussions, particularly with European Union, and this his particularly relevant at the moment in connection with a security program that has been developed in the European Union, which of course is something that will sit alongside the NATO Security Through Science Program, which is already well developed. Q: The Science Committee has been holding one of its meetings each year in a partner country, including most recently Georgia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. Could you tell us about your experience with these events, and how are you received in partner countries? What does the science community do during these events? HEAP: The annual visit to one of the former Soviet Union countries is a very important part of the work that we do. I'll concentrate on our visit to Uzbekistan and also make a short comment about our visit to Ukraine. In each of the visits that we make we hold one of the regular Science Committee meetings so that we have one section of our visit is devoted to regular business meeting. Another section is devoted to visiting laboratories in the country in question and the academies, in order to interact with the scientists in those countries and to hear about what they are doing, and to have presentations from them, and also to discuss with them what are the possibilities of future collaboration within the context of the NATO science program. Now in addition to that we also, from time to time, give our own presentations on areas of new developments, and at our meeting in Uzbekistan, where we visited Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara, we held a special meeting in Tashkent which was for the purpose of developing a discussion about the technology transfer, the transfer of new science and technology into commercial application. And that was received with very great interest. It occurred immediately after the meeting that we'd had in Istanbul, which was a special NATO advanced research workshop, for the purpose of looking at the issues to deal with commercialisation of science, and we were able to transfer a lot of that information directly to the meeting that we held in the following few days in Uzbekistan. So these are some of the extremely helpful connections that can be made with countries in Central Asia, and these have been a very important part of our work. Q: The NATO Security Through Science Program is sponsored in cooperation with seven countries in the Mediterranean Dialogue. Could you give us an assessment of the trends in the initiatives in terms of the level of activity and the benefits of those countries? And what are some of the issues of interest to the Mediterranean Dialogue countries? HEAP: Let me take the question of the issues, first of all, which have to do with topics relating to food security, to the environment, and also to water supply. And in each of these, of course, there's very important, high quality science and technology that can be brought to bear, and all the scientists in those Mediterranean Dialogue countries are interested in that aspect. However, there are some interesting challenges for the NATO Science Committee, because as we request submissions for work from the Mediterranean Dialogue countries, the trend tends to be, so far, that a majority of the grants have been awarded to Israel, because Israeli scientists have come forward with cutting-edge projects, which are highly relevant to each of the issues that I've already mentioned. However, there are also some excellent projects coming forward from other countries of the Mediterranean Dialogue and one of the ideas that I've been promoting in particular, and this is especially from a U.K. perspective, is to suggest that we should have a new arrangement whereby Israeli scientists submit, together with scientists from at least one of the other countries of the Mediterranean Dialogue, so that there is collaborative work between scientists and this uses the opportunity to develop a new interaction. Now my personal contact shows that scientists in the Mediterranean Dialogue countries are very keen to do this and it's an open door to look at the possibility of developing collaborative work between these countries. Q: Sir Brian, I'm aware that you have been a strong advocate of the NATO Security Through Science Program, within both the NATO and national structures. Can you share some of our experiences, and especially the reaction of those you have had contact with? HEAP: The opportunities that are presented now by this new re-orientated program, which is focused particularly on NATO's objectives and the security issue, I would want to identify a couple of points in particular. First of all, it's very clear that the situation we now face is very different from the pre-9/11 periods in that we now have this challenge of how to handle asymmetric conflict, asymmetric warfare. And the question that has been put to the NATO Science Committee is what it is in the science and technology that can be brought to bear to address this problem? My own experience shows that in discussions with my military colleagues they have a very strong issue to ensure that they have contact with cutting edge science, and new scientific breakthroughs and new technology. And that they certainly don't want to lose that opportunity and this, I think, is where the NATO science program can play a very important part. To actually put everything together, to put the military and the science activities together and simply merge them would mean that we could very well lose contact with those scientists who are making very fundamental breakthroughs, which have relevance to security issues. So my experience in discussing with colleagues is that there's a great desire to ensure that these are not forced together, but that there is good interaction between the two. So there's a direct flow of information from one to the other. I also want to add this further point, however, and that is the amount of money that NATO puts into the NATO Science Program is extremely small. My calculations show that it is not greater than one percent of the total NATO budget. And if I can express a personal view, I think this underestimates the potential use and importance of science, both in terms of hard security issues and soft security issues, and I have been promoting the idea that the ambassadors should actually... of each country, should be looking at the opportunities that are presented by the NATO Science Program, of Security Through Science, rather than looking at ways in which they can diminish it. Q: Your scientific expertise are in the biological sciences, where there has been incredible progress in new discoveries in recent years. How are the biosciences related to security issues? And how is the Security Through Science Program contributing in this field? HEAP: Well Security Through Science Program brings together new science and technology that's relevant to topics like, for example, the development of new vaccines, the production of foods in hostile environments, using genetically modified crops that can be grown in areas that previously they've been unable to develop; and also in connection with environmental population. The biological sciences are also providing new ideas about how to develop new sensor techniques, such as bio-sensors, for example. Now with the tremendous growth in the biological sciences, and particularly in the genetic sciences, there are questions that we have to address, and one of those, of course, is the issue of biological weapons, and the extent to which the new knowledge that is emerging could be abused and used in a way that is going to be dangerous. Now to that extent I think we now live a new phase. And scientists have a new responsibility because this prospect of dual use of the new biological knowledge is posing for us questions about how to handle this in the broader context. And so, for example, in my own case, I've been promoting the thought that when we receive grant proposals, or where papers are published and sent to scientific journals--I'm an editor of a scientific journal, for example--scientists should be asked the question, is there any possibility that this work could be used in ways that would be damaging to society rather than positive? Now this isn't going to solve the problem, but it is addressing the issue of looking at the problem through scientists' own self-scrutiny, asking questions of themselves and making... raising awareness that this is a problem that really does need to be addressed, will need to be addressed in the future, and I would much prefer this to be a problem that is addressed by scientists themselves, who have a special responsibility in the field.