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international cooperative programs, we have not in the past developed more formal and focused activities in this area. A very large proportion of the Institution's research activities, particularly in the biological sciences, are focused on foreign countries. We have an extensive network of contacts throughout much of the world, and many of our staff members have extensive field experience in these places. In this area, I am thinking of the possibility of pairing NSF-supported scientists with Smithsonian people working in the same area to develop joint field teams to more fully exploit difficult to arrange access to remote areas. Given that both of our organizations on the policy side have invested considerable energies in the issues of biological diversity and global change, it seems only logical to take this next step. In particular, tropical research is an important area of expertise for us and NSF has long funded activities and organizations such as the Organization for Tropical Studies, with which the SI has important linkages.

Another more prosaic approach might be to consider cooperative sponsorship of scientific seminars, wherein the Smithsonian could offer an appropriate venue to conference support for programs that NSF wishes to sponsor. The area of joint publications and other forms of cooperative dissemination also come to mind as areas to pursue.

These are simply preliminary ideas that have come to me, and I am sure there are many other possibilities. Nevertheless, I thought I would suggest them to you, in the hope that you and your colleagues might be sufficiently interested to pursue further discussion.

Sincerely,

/s/

Robert S. Hoffmann
Assistant Secretary for Research

* * * * *

December 27, 1991

Dr. Robert S. Hoffmann
Assistant Secretary for Research
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C. 20560

Dear Bob:

Thank you for your letter of December 4, 1991. I must apologize for my late response. Somehow your letter was misplaced and only reached my desk on December 24, 1991.