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4
Gathering, Disseminating, and Assimilating
Technical Information from Abroad
Each group in the U.S. engineering and technology community must
ask itself how it can increase the assimilation of useful information from
abroad by U.S. engineers through improved gathering, processing, and dis-
semination. The NSF, with its unique national mandate, should assess and
monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall system. The challenge
is to avoid technical surprise, but the volume of technical information now
generated outside the United States is enormous. And if the activities of
U.S. industry, government, universities, and professional societies were to-
taled, there would be little question as to the adequacy of raw information
acquisition from abroad. However, the very quantity of information is itself
the heart of the problem: how to scan the sources, what to translate, and
how to evaluate, analyze, synthesize, and provide perspective.
No systematic analysis has been conducted of the benefits and costs
of the range of mechanisms available to industry, government, academia,
and professional societies for accessing information from foreign sources.
The committee recommends that NSF develop performance measures for
the various mechanisms for foreign information gathering, processing, and
dissemination in engineering and technology, and use these measures to assess
present-day effectiveness of current systems and to indicate ways of increasing
their efficiency. There is a need to think more seriously about how to make
information useful to practicing engineers and faculty members, and then
design or redesign efforts accordingly.
It is important to keep in mind that individual engineers and technol-
ogists are the essence of the technical information system, and many play
multiple roles through participation in the organizations where they work,
their professional society memberships, and consulting activities. Individual
29
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engineers, whether employed in university, government, or industry, typi-
cally are involved with a range of mechanisms for exchange of information
internationally.
Professional Societies
Professional engineering societies are internationally active in a variety
of ways. In some cases they have cooperative agreements and programs with
counterpart societies abroad; they help arrange educational opportunities
for U.S. engineers abroad and foreign engineers here; they may represent
U.S. interests in organizing international congresses; they sometimes spon-
sor delegations to foreign countries; they organize international specialty
conferences; they sponsor lectures in the United States by outstanding en-
gineers of foreign societies; and they provide a forum for exchange between
their foreign and domestic members. Most important for this report, the
professional societies issue many publications—books, conference proceed-
ings, journals, and magazines that include foreign authors and report on
developments outside the United States. Thus, professional societies are a
leading mechanism for international exchange of information.
U.S. engineering societies have attracted many foreign members. About
7,000 of the 100,000 members of the American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE) and about 4,000 of the 100,000 members of the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers (ASME) reside outside North America. The Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (lEEE), the largest of the U.S.-based
engineering professional societies, is constitutionally a transnational organi-
zation with 275,000 members, of whom 50,000 live outside the United States.
It has a geographically based structure of local sections and regions through-
out the world. The Society of Petroleum Engineers has members in more
than 90 countries and membership sections in 32. Several of the societies
have been systematically strengthening their international structure.
Professional engineering societies should develop trend indicators and
make periodic evaluations of their international activities. These indicators
might include counts of foreign speakers and reports on foreign technology
development on conference programs, as well as the proportion of publica-
tions authored or reporting on developments abroad. Both quantitative and
qualitative measures must be considered. One sample of 286 papers pub-
lished recently by the ASCE showed 32 percent by foreign authors from more
than 20 countries. About 15 percent of papers published in the 14 journals
of the ASME recently have been generated outside the United States, and
at ASME international conferences it is not unusual to have 50 percent of
the papers presented by foreign participants.
Professional societies should take the lead in a national assessment of the
availability of information from technical publications to the U.S. engineering
and technology community, and of mechanisms for improving the assimila-
tion of such information. Some of the questions that might be addressed
include: Is there a need to promote English translation of titles, abstracts,
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or full articles beyond current practices? Should international coverage in
professional society magazines be changed or expanded? What patterns or
problems emerge from a critical evaluation of foreign authorship in present
publications? Are review journals sufficiently international in their out-
look? Are opportunities for on-line access, use of compact disc read-only
memories (CD ROMs), and machine translation of articles being exploited?
Could programs such as that of the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics to locate and translate foreign abstracts be usefully expanded?
In the light of these and other evaluations, U.S.-6ased engineering soci-
eties should continue to develop their international activities for the benefit
of the U.S. and international engineering and technology enterprise.
Academia
Universities play major roles in gathering, processing, and disseminating
information on technology developments abroad. Universities usually fill
these roles in diffuse ways, through the mix of research, teaching, travel,
visitors, lecture series, and other activities characteristic of campus life. As
discussed in the preceding chapter, a more deliberate approach to the role of
academia in international developments in engineering and technology could
substantially benefit the U.S. technology enterprise. There are opportunities
both for individuals and for centers or other large organizational units in
this regard.
In many areas, developing a better international exchange of research
results and practical applications will rely on one-to-one interactions. These
can be achieved by a foreign visitor spending time with a U.S. counterpart at
a U.S. institution, or vice versa. New technologies, such as the international
computer network BITNET, offer fast and efficient complementary means to
strengthen person-to-person interaction and collaboration. Although lack of
funds or language deficiencies may often be barriers to information gathering
and exchange, problems of attitude and effort may be greater obstacles. U.S.
engineers often spend more time talking to foreign visitors than listening to
them. The committee recommends that the NSF and other organizations
expand programs to fund lecture tours by foreign experts in engineering and
technology to U.S. universities and industry. The visitors should be asked to
provide review and perspective lectures in their fields of expertise and also
to indicate promising trends and opportunities. The committee recommends
that NAB in particular consider conducting a program of lectures by presti-
gious international visitors in engineering and technology that would involve
contact with a spectrum of interested communities around the United States.
There is a lack of effective means to ensure that U.S. academic travelers
(or engineers who serve on program committees of international conferences)
make consistent efforts to share with their colleagues at home what they have
learned abroad. Funds for U.S. travel abroad might be linked more closely
with the responsibility to share, through writings or talks, what is learned
with U.S. colleagues in acadern~a and industry.
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The establishment of on-campus centers dedicated to international tech-
nology assessment would benefit the synthesis of technical developments and
the organization of ongoing information services to a variety of constituen-
cies. The committee thus recommends that the NSF establish an experimental
program of several on-campus international technology assessment centers
(ITACs) that would have the following responsibilities:
. To keep abreast of foreign developments and centers of excellence in
specified technology areas and encourage the flow of technical information
to the United States for the benefit of U.S. engineers and technologists;
To develop outreach programs to provide information about engi-
neering progress abroad to researchers at other U.S. academic institutions
and researchers and practitioners in industry and federal laboratories;
To help develop curricular and other educational materials for ex-
ample, development of technical language courses, audio and video cassettes,
and texts related to increasing the capability of U.S. researchers and prac-
ticing engineers to appreciate developments abroad in a timely manner.
~ To offer short courses and other programs or activities that can help
increase the value of travel abroad for U.S. engineers and technologists;
. To serve as a catalyst for encouraging visits by outstanding foreign
technologists to the United States;
. To develop programs to increase the effectiveness of government
employees concerned with technology and international affairs.
ITACs might be especially effective at existing or emerging centers of
research excellence, such as the Materials Research Labs, Engineering Re-
search Centers, and the proposed Science and Technology Centers. ITACs
should be selected on the basis of a review of proposals. Criteria for selec-
tion would include the importance of the area of technology to be assessed,
plans for sharing and transferring information to key cooperating groups
in academia and industry, and plans for evaluating the effectiveness of the
proposed program. As with the Engineering Research Centers, subject areas
for the ITACs should be established in response to unsolicited proposals by
the engineering and technology community. The operation of each ITAC
would probably require several hundred thousand dollars per year, and mul-
tiyear grants should be awarded so that meaningful evaluations of utility
are possible. Evaluations should seek to ensure that the centers are both
cost-effective and competent at dissemination.
The experience and functions of government groups and commercial
vendors of technical information should be taken into account in designing
the centers and determining the focus for programs that would contribute
most toward meeting U.S. needs. Support from industrial associates should
be looked upon as an indication of utility, and other agencies such as the
departments of Commerce and Defense should also be encouraged to con-
tribute financial support. Leading researchers at the host institutions for the
centers would be expected to commit a portion of their time to the centers to
provide guidance for the evaluation and sorting of information. Other staff
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members of the centers would include information services experts, writers,
editors, and people skilled in various aspects and modes of communication.
Government
Many nations have developed governmental mechanisms for monitoring
foreign technological developments and reporting them back to government
agencies and domestic industries. The U.S. government has not developed an
overall strategy or organization for this purpose. It does, however, fund and
operate numerous services and programs relevant to the flow of information
and technology to the United States from other countries. There is a need to
rationalize diverse activities, reduce duplication among them, increase their
effectiveness, and bridge critical gaps. One example of an imbalance that
needs review is that only about 1 percent of the $30-million annual budget
of the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) of the Department
of Commerce is applied to foreign acquisitions. Yet some 60 percent of
publications in engineering and technology worldwide come from sources
outside the United States.
The following federal agencies are among the principal supporters of un-
cIassified foreign information services and programs in the U.S. government:
Department of Commerce
The NTIS Foreign Technology Acquisition Program
International Trade Administration competitive assessments
Economic Development Administration- Industrial Research Insti-
tute business technology assessments
Japan Technology (JTECH) Evaluation Program (operated by Sci-
ence Applications International Corporation)
Patent Office
Department of Defense
Office of Naval Research, London and Tokyo
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Army Research Office
Foreign Applied Sciences Assessment Center
Department of State (science attaches)
National Science Foundation
Department of Energy (through its national laboratories)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Library of Medicine
Congressional Office of Technology Assessment
Appendix A contains background information on several programs of the
agencies mentioned above.
The committee finds a need for government agencies to reconsider their
roles and missions with regard to information from abroad on engineering
and technology. The National Science Foundation should organize and lead
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an interagency study of the adequacy and coordination of federal efforts with
regard to gathering technical information worldwide, tracking and analyzing
trends in technology abroad, and; ensuring effective dissemination of knowledge
to the concerned government agencies, private companies, and universities.
Among the issues that need to be examined are
adequacy of funding levels and distribution of funds;
adequacy of translation and evaluation capabilities;
adequacy of interagency cooperation and opportunities for integra-
tion of efforts;
balancing government efforts to limit and encourage information
flows; and
potential effectiveness of establishing International Technology As-
sessment Centers" of the type described above at national laborato-
ries, as well as at universities.
An objective of the study should be to define personnel needs and policies
that would enable the government to benefit from foreign engineering and
technology developments more fully. More vigorous recruitment of engineers
from industry, academia, other federal agencies, and national laboratories
to serve on a temporary (one- to two-year) basis in U.S. embassies abroad
and in agency offices in the United States would be desirable. There are
many competent technical professionals who would benefit from and agree
to spend a year or two abroad on assignment. Though numerous suggestions
have been made over the years to expand directly the capabilities of the State
Department's science and technology sector, there is debate on whether an
agency that focuses on diplomatic policy objectives, has a largely nontech-
nical constituency, and offers limited career opportunities for technologists,
could attract and retain the appropriate personnel. Several nations, in-
cluding France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, and the People's
Republic of China have notably more effective science and technology at-
tache systems. The programs of these nations are generally characterized by
activism by the attaches with regard to clienteles in industry and academia,
as well as government.
The study should also include examination of opportunities to improve
programs for the dissemination of technical information. One proposal is to
prepare graphic displays ("road shows") for presentation at industrial and
professional society meetings around the United States. Such a "road show"
would be much more cost-effective than simply adding a review paper to
the vast technical literature, which is already largely unread by practicing
engineers. This initiative could draw on some features of the technology
assessment centers now operating in large companies; however, it could
cover technical subjects an individual firm might be unable to address and
would serve groups of smaller companies as well as large companies.
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Industry
There are a variety of mechanisms by which companies can obtain access
to foreign technical information, and many of these are simple extensions of
domestically focused efforts.2i The different mechanisms serve at least three
kinds of information needs:
. general knowledge concerning the state of engineering and scientific
research and practice in fields relevant to an industry's products or processes;
information about the business performance and market share of
particular technological processes or products; and
.
.
information needed in connection with acquisition and development
of technological capability found outside the firm.
Perhaps the most important source of general information about tech-
nology for a particular industry is the engineering and scientific community
concerned with technologies close to the heart of the products and processes
used by that industry. No professional network can cover every technology,
but it is usually possible for a determined technical professional to discover
a large proportion of the information available on a specific technology. The
tools for this discovery are well known—personal and professional contacts,
conferences, and the technical and trade literature but the integration of
a company's technical personnel into relevant professional communities is
often underrated as a fundamental information system. Several primary
mechanisms are discussed below.
Published and Unpublished Literature. The professional engineering
and science literature is an important source of information in a technical
community, as is the trade literature. The news columns of professional
and trade journals can provide useful clues about what others are working
on, and for someone knowledgeable about an area of technology, even daily
newspapers and news magazines sometimes indicate where to search further.
Access to technical advances requires familiarity with technical field and the
literature; a business background is not sufficient.
The growing number of centers of technical excellence in other coun-
tries means that published, and especially unpublished, material may be
in a foreign language. In some large companies or research organizations,
foreign-language publications are not a major problem: The large number
of foreign-born students and professionals in engineering provide foreign-
language capability in operating plants and corporate laboratories. The
situation is different, of course, for smaller businesses. It may be difficult
for a small firm to locate and gain access to relevant technical advances
published in other languages. It is difficult to quantify the degree to which
small businesses are handicapped by this difficulty. The technical needs of
many small businesses may or may not be satisfied by English-language pub-
lications. Several small businesses in an industry could create a cost-sharing
system for such translations; industry and trade associations may have a
useful role to play in such an effort.
Conferences and Uade Fairs. Attendance at technical conferences is
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another opportunity to make contact with, and gain information from, col-
leagues from foreign universities and industrial companies. Such informal
contacts can be more important than the papers presented, since they are
possible sources of the most current information. A key to effective access
to the information content of conferences is the ability of individuals at-
tendin~ to make a contribution to the field. Information trading is at the
~ . ~ ~ ~ . ~ - e A · , ''
heart ot conferences, and trading requires a wllllngness to exchange new
information. Professional societies are the primary sponsors of the thou-
sands of conferences held each year. Also, individual firms may themselves
host conferences on topics of importance to them. Trade fairs sponsored
by government agencies can also be excellent opportunities for obtaining
information on technology strategies of other firms. There may be oppor-
tunities for industry groups and the Department of Cornrnerce to sponsor
appropriate international trade fairs in the United States to benefit the U.S.
technology enterprise.
Science and Terknology Advisory Committees. Another way in which
firms can obtain general technical knowledge is through a science and tech-
nology advisory committee of exceptionally competent outsiders. Careful
selection of foreign-based technology advisers could extend the horizon of
advisory committees.
University Contacts. Dozens of Japanese companies send some 200 re-
searchers annually to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for extended
stays. In 1986, fifty-five Japanese and about fifty European companies each
paid $40,000 per year to take part in an MIT industry-university liaison
program. Foreign industrial companies have been eager and effective in de-
veloping ties to other U.S. universities as well. U.S. Arms should consider
developing similar ties to foreign centers of academic excellence.
Overseas Listening Posts. A large company, or a consortium of small
companies in an industry can establish and overate overseas listening posts
. ~ ~ ~ . · ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ A ~ · · ~ . -
stanect oy active and knowledgeable people who are skilled In Information
gathering and have adequate language skills.
Commercial and Government Information Services. Several commer-
cial subscription services specializing in various technologies and geographic
regions exist. For example, a private U.S. company's Japanese Technical
Information Service provides technical abstracts in English and summaries
of current Japanese research to customers in the United States. Begun in
January 1986, the service should be on-line soon. The U.S. government also
provides a variety of information services open to private firms. But, as
mentioned above and in Appendix A, the important concern is that techni-
cal information of commercial value collected by government agencies is not
flowing efficiently to, or being used effectively by, U.S. industry.
Visits. It is often possible for a company to obtain an invitation for a
tour of a foreign competitor's facility and to be the host for a visit in return.
Visitors are not likely to receive access to detailed proprietary information,
but it is possible in this way to learn much about the state of the art and
the competition.
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Competitive Assessment Centers. Some U.S. companies use competitive
assessment centers to examine competitors' products purchased on the mar-
ket. These products can be dissected to see what the competitor is doing
well or otherwise. Sometimes it is possible to anticipate what is likely be
done next from what has just been done.
Other industry mechanisms for information flow include firm-to-firm or
industry-to-industry exchange programs, patents and licenses, and consul-
tants.
The committee urges firms to ensure that their systems for collecting and
assimilating technical information from abroad are well focused and adequate
for maintaining their international competitiveness.
In conclusion, the dynamic nature of information flows must be stressed.
No "solution" is likely to remain adequate for long in any sector or organi-
zation with the current rapidity of developments in engineering and technol-
ogy. There is a need for continuing optimization of the system for gathering,
sorting, exchanging, and disseminating information at many levels. In this
environment the committee recommends designation of individual at high
organizational levels to be specially attentive to opportunities and needs for
the inf ow of information from abroad.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
assessment centers
