U.S. scientific collaboration on research and policy: The necessity of global engagement

Most contemporary science and technology (S and T) policy issues involve complex science that spans diverse disciplines and expertise, as well as physical and political boundaries that span multiple countries. These characteristics of S and T policy issues underscore the importance of cross-country collaboration to solve these increasingly complex policy problems. International collaborations allow scholars in different nations to share resources, such as datasets and expensive research equipment. This type of collaboration can allow scientific research to move forward much more quickly than it otherwise would. Simultaneously, this potential rapid movement of scientific research within the context of a technology needs to be matched by attention to the ethical and policy limitations when the risks of the technology might be high or uncertain. Therefore, for the case of emerging technologies, it is imperative that scientific scholars collaborate on the science while policy makers work across countries to collaborate on policy development.