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A General Statement of the Primary Spheres of Activity of the Smithsonian Directorate of International Activities and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

The Wilson Center was created by statute "in the Smithsonian Institution," has been located from the beginning in the Castle, and enjoys close relationships with the Smithsonian.  Both bodies maintain important international programs and interests.  Those of the Wilson Center constitute much of its primary activity.  The Center supports basic research and original scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, primarily through competitively awarded grants attracting scholars with research programs of their own choosing, and through related meetings and symposia which seek especially to increase the exchange of ideas between scholars and men and women of practical affairs.  The Smithsonian international programs are widely distributed among the various bureaus of the Institution, but are coordinated through its Directorate of International Activities.  They are preponderantly in natural science disciplines but also range into anthropology, history, oriental and art-historical studies, and museum related activities.  By far the largest part of the Smithsonian's international activity takes the form of its own research and exhibit programs.  While also providing competitively awarded grants to scholars from other countries, the dominant criterion in making such awards is the degree of "fit" between the individual applicant's background and interests and the Smithsonian's own international activities.

Both the Smithsonian and the Wilson Center recognize the need to coordinate their international programs, in order to increase their effectiveness and to reduce possibilities of duplication.  Overlap is in any case largely eliminated by differences between the two programs in