Viewing page 163 of 219

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-66-

sustained research interviews in India. In FY 1982, $1,000,00 equivalent in rupees have been requested for this purpose and additional increments may be requested in future years to ensure continuity of programs of the AIIS through a transition period after the depletion of the U.S. owned rupee account in India. Another project planned to begin in FY 1982 is the initial funding for the international salvage effort to preserve the ancient urban site at Moenjodaro, Pakistan. This project may require several years, and current plans are to apply annually about $1,000,000 equivalent in Pakistani rupees over a four year period.

Increased federal appropriations will be sought in future years for the [[underlined]] International Environmental Science Program [[/underlined]] which also contributes substantially to institutional research progress, and continues to be considered a high priority effort. The Program pursues environmental monitoring at two permanent Smithsonian sites -- the Chesapeake Bay Center and the Tropical Research Institute -- and at several temporary sites. Over the next five years, an effort will be made to strengthen the research work at these sites to monitor changes in the natural environment and to stay abreast of biological conservation affairs. Based on an outside review, the Institution has implemented a program of long-term environmental monitoring as an activity which matches the basic aims and purposes of the Institution's research programs. Increase funding will allow emphasis to be placed on defined parameters of watershed monitoring and on changes in marine indicators at the permanent stations. In addition, resources will be applied toward developing information from computer banks for use by land managers, and toward the establishment of monitoring sites in the Caribbean and China. More resources will be sought for the biogeographic work being done in the Amazon and for data analyses, publication and support costs.

[[underlined]] Research Awards Program. [[/underlined]] The FY 1982 budget submission to the Office of Management and Budget contains $300,000 to reestablish the Research Awards Program. Reestablishment of the program, which operated from FY 1966 through FY 1979, is considered important to the science programs of the Institution. In years past the science work supported by the program was often the best of the Institution's productivity. It offered opportunities to individual researchers to work in a collaborative fashion with colleagues located in other institutions and to conduct expeditions and other field projects. All projects were undertaken only after a careful and selective review process by peer group panels consisting of outside noninstitutional specialists. These external review procedures will continue and will provide insight into new scientific directions to assure the highest standard for research quality by basing the award solely on the scholar's competence in the field, the originality of approach, and the promise of providing new information on techniques in a particular field of scholarship.

The reestablished program will be administered centrally by the Office of Fellowships and Grants following all appropriate federal personnel and procurement practices and procedures along the pattern of the FY 1979 program. No funds were appropriated in FY 1980, and the Institution did not include funds for Research Awards in its FY 1981 request. Our interest in such a program remains high. Consequently, we are seeking renewed