con ortia under con ideration or development deal with the following topic : • The adoption of technological innovation : the di connect between engineers and economi t • Economic and other impact of global warming • Optimal de ign of case- tudy replication for the of compari on purpo • The di crepancy between what people know about environmental change, how they feel, and how they act.
Collaboration with European colleague , and e pecially with the European Science Foundation i mo t welcome, although mo t of the current planning activitie will be U.S.-ba ed. Given the ize and diver ity of the United State , the whole region i een a being a good re earch ite. The National Academy of ScienceslNational Re earch Council and, in particular, it Commi ion on Behavioral and Social Science and Education (CBASSE; Director, Dr. Suzanne Wool ey), carrie out work on a contract or grant ba i in re pon e to reque t for technical, cientific, and policy advice from a wide variety of government agencie and private organization. The main criterion for a project i that it mu t involve a ignificant ocial i ue problem for cience or public policy and that it can be an wered with e entiaJly econdary data. The end product i therefore an advi ory report normaJly prepared by a maJl panel of academic expert in a particular field. A report on the human dimen ion of global change, dealing in particular with large regional i ue in the United State (uch a change in population den ity and environmental tre ) and que tion of legal tran fer i expected to be publi hed oon. The work of thi CBASSE panel i pon ored by the National Science Foundation; the SSRC Committee for Re earch on Global Environmental Change receive core funding from NSF a well a upport from other ource . While the SSRC committee' work i aimed at networking the relevant academic community and forwarding ba ic re earch goal , the CBASSE work i more oriented to applied goal through it advi ory role to government in Washington, D.C. Yet another approach to environmental i ue and to addre ing them through a variety of mean i taken by the Rockefeller Foundation. The new Global Environmental Program of the Foundation i de igned "to a i t developing countrie to advance environmentaJly ound development in their own countrie 8O\lTEM
and to participate fuJly in international re pon e to environmental challenge ." In 1989 the Foundation anticipated pending at lea t $50 million over the fif t five years of thi program. Four broad area of intere t for grant and fellow hip activity were identified: (1) to a ita elected number of large developing countrie a they strengthen the human and in titutional capacity needed to manage their own natural re ource and energy u e; (2) to train environmental economi t in the developing world and develop economic re earch applied to environmental deci ion making, re ource accounting and monitoring, a well a global bargaining and corekeeping; (3) to upport focu ed activitie including cultural per pective and in titutional change required to fo ter global and regional accord on a variety of environmental ubjects; and (4) to help American prepare for the change in economic and living pattern that will be required as the U.S. undertake it hare of the global adju tment nece ary to protect the environment (Rockefeller Foundation, 1989 Annual Report). In our di cu ion with Dr. Alberta Arthur , Director for Arts and Humanitie , a clear concern with environmental ethic and with building up olid communication link between 'culture" and "development" came to the fore. According to Dr. Arthur, the ocial cienti t mo t advanced in the field of the environment are environmental hi tori an (a view which received confirmation al 0 from other di cu ion partner ), while the economi t were een a trailing behind.
Other developments in the social sciences The following ob ervation are widely ubjective and aro e out of pecific intere t and con tellation touched upon during our vi it. They do not form anything approaching a coherent picture of current development in ba ic re earch in the U.S. ocial cience . Neverthele ,we were truck both by a certain continuity of re earch theme and methodologie and, at the arne time, innovative approache and new theme which were accepted and built up very quickly. Among the continuou trend, the high priority accorded to the e tabli hment, improvement, and harmonization of data et wa very noticeable. Hi toricaJly, the ocial cience organized in bodie. like the SSRC have kept do e link with the U.S. Federal tati tical y tern in area uch a health and VOLUME
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