Endowment aimed at strengthening, widening academic ties with France
France-Stanford research collaboration gets jump-start with conference of leading science and engineering scholars

BY MARK SHWARTZ

Long before the current diplomatic rift between Paris and Washington, the government of France was raising concerns about another disturbing trend in Franco-American relations: the declining interest in French studies in the United States.

To help remedy the problem, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced in 2001 that it would give an American university a $1 million endowment to establish a program that encouraged academic cooperation between the two countries. By the fall of that year, the ministry had received proposals from universities throughout the United States -- including one from Stanford's Interdisciplinary Institute of French Studies (IIFS) titled "The France-Stanford Project: Rethinking the French Connection in Silicon Valley." In December 2001, the ministry awarded the endowment to IIFS to establish the France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (FSCIS).

"The fundamental goal of the center will be to foster interdisciplinary research interests between Stanford scholars across the departments and schools and their French counterparts," said IIFS director Keith Baker, cognizant dean for the humanities in Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences.

"The $1 million gift is just the beginning of an effort to secure the full endowment for the center. Our first goal must be to raise an additional $1 million in matching funds, but we hope to build upon this gift and go beyond that," noted Baker, the J. E. Wallace Sterling Professor in the Humanities.

"The official launch of the center will occur in the fall, when a celebration will take place with French diplomatic officials, from both the cultural and the science and technology services, in attendance," added IIFS associate director Robert McGinn.

In the meantime, IIFS is continuing to organize on-campus events, including a conference titled "Issues of Risk and Responsibility in Contemporary Engineering and Science: French and U.S. Perspectives," held April 7-8 at the Arrillaga Alumni Center. The conference included scientists and engineers with strong interests in the social dimensions of science and engineering -- 12 scholars from Stanford and 12 from France. Also in attendance were eight Stanford engineering students -- four of whom are French citizens.

"This is the first of many opportunities for intellectual stimulation that will stretch into the future," said McGinn, conference organizer and professor (teaching) of management science and engineering. "How did this venture get started? The basic idea was to expand the traditional model of French studies in the United States -- one revolving around history, language and literature -- into a more inclusive one incorporating the perspectives of science and engineering, as well as those of business, law and medicine. Involvement of scholars from various professional schools is, to the best of my knowledge, a radical departure from the practice of traditional French studies programs."

National security

The conference began with a keynote address on technology and national security by William Perry, former U.S. secretary of defense, who is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for International Studies. While lauding the development of precision weaponry and other sophisticated equipment, Perry also spoke of the risks of deploying new military technology.

"Nations hostile to the United States, realizing that they cannot stand up with conventional military forces, will be stimulated to develop weapons of mass destruction -- ironically, as an offset to our technologies," Perry warned, adding that if terrorists get hold of these weapons, "there is no doubt they will use them."

Following Perry's address, participants focused their attention on nine risk-related topics, including engineering risk analysis, climate change and information technology. Issues in each area were discussed in presentations by two scholars -- one from Stanford and one from a French institution.

While there were many areas of agreement, there also were sharp differences in policy and perspective. José Achache, associate director of the European Space Agency, discussed the question of whether providing open access to Earth observation from space should be viewed as an opportunity for researchers or a threat to security.

A former postdoctoral fellow in earth sciences at Stanford, Achache noted that, for years, military research has been an extremely efficient driver of technological advances in the private sector. Notable examples include the Global Positioning System (GPS), which is still operated by the U.S. Department of Defense, and ARPANET, a computer network developed by the DOD in the 1960s that eventually evolved into the Internet. "I was trained at Stanford, so I believe in technology," Achache observed.

However, because of recent national security concerns, Achache said the Defense Department has been less willing to share new technologies with European earth scientists who are eager to obtain improved satellite images for natural hazard prediction, weather forecasting and other research. In fact, concern that the department would restrict access to GPS satellites is a primary reason why the European Union has launched a civilian version of GPS called GALILEO, which is scheduled to be fully operational by 2008.

Stem cell controversy

Another session focused on therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell research -- controversial issues in the United States and Europe. Channing Robertson, the Ruth G. and William K. Bowes Professor of Chemical Engineering, presented the American perspective while Anne Fagot-Largeault of the Collège de France discussed the view from Europe.

Robertson noted that there is a clear moral and ethical divide in America between those who believe that embryonic stem cells could prove beneficial to improving life and those who consider the research nothing less than murder of a developing fetus. He pointed out that the failure of Congress to adopt a national policy on human cloning has resulted in a situation where state governments have begun to enact their own laws.

"There are at least 14 definitions of 'cloning' on the books now," Robertson said. "It's total chaos." If the situation continues, he noted, then the United States could end up like China, where there are virtually no federal regulations governing embryonic research.

Opinion in Europe is far less divided, said Fagot-Largeault, with surveys showing that the majority of people in the 15 EU nations support embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning -- while opposing genetic manipulation of crops. Despite this "astonishing homogeneity" of popular opinion, Fagot-Largeault said government policy varies widely among individual EU nations: "The United Kingdom is very liberal, Italy is very restrictive and France is in the middle."

French law bans all experiments on living embryos but permits the removal of stem cells from dead or aborted fetuses for medical research. However, a bill has been introduced that would allow researchers to use spare embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics -- embryos that would otherwise be destroyed. The proposed law also would make the use of cloned embryos for medical experimentation a misdemeanor and classify reproductive cloning a much more serious crime.

At the conclusion of the conference, McGinn said that the group may reconvene in Paris for a follow-up meeting to delve more deeply into issues of risk and responsibility in contemporary engineering and science.