CRDF Global is an "... independent nonprofit organization that promotes international scientific and technical collaboration ..."[1] CRDF Global was authorized by the U.S. Congress in 1992 under the Freedom Support Act and established in 1995 by the National Science Foundation. This unique public-private partnership promotes international scientific and technical collaboration through grants, technical resources, and training[2].
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CRDF Global is based in Arlington, Virginia, and has offices in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia; Kiev, Ukraine; Almaty, Kazakhstan; and Amman, Jordan.
Between 1995 - 2010, CRDF Global awarded nearly 3,000 grants to more than 13,000 scientists—including 2,500 former weapons researchers—and has committed more than $105 million in total support. In addition to its own funds, CRDF Global has been able to leverage more than $42 million in additional support from foreign governments; as well as cash and in-kind contributions from participating American businesses. In addition to its grantmaking, CRDF Global has a very popular service it provides to organizations seeking to conduct research collaborations abroad, called CRDF Solutions (formerly GAP.) Through this service, CRDF Global has facilitated more than 1,100 individual projects, valued at over $195 million, on behalf of more than 180 business and industry, education and government clients.[4]
To promote peace and prosperity through international science collaboration[5].
CRDF Global believes that the spirit of international science and technology cooperation provides critical benefits to the global community. CRDF Global supports foreign scientists and their U.S. counterparts in exceptional merit-reviewed research projects. These collaborations advance science and technical agendas of both American and foreign science. They also offer foreign scientists and engineers alternatives to emigration; help prevent the dissolution of their scientific and technological infrastructure; and advance the transition of weapons scientists to civilian work. CRDF Global also helps to move applied research to the marketplace by teaming U.S. companies with foreign scientists, and helps to strengthen research and education in universities abroad.
CRDF Global's Board of Directors is co-chaired by Dr. William Wulf, president emeritus of the National Academy of Engineering and Ms. Dona L. Crawford, associate director of computation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The other members of the Board of Directors are: Dr. Jaleh Daie, managing partner of Aurora Equity; Dr. Farouk El-Baz, Research Professor and Director of the Center for Remote Sensing, Boston University; Dr. Howard Frank, professor of management science, University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business; Dr. Irma Gigli, director of the Center for Immunology & Autoimmune Diseases, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; Dr. S. Malcolm Gillis, Ervin Kenneth Zingler Professor of Economics, William Marsh Rice University; Mr. Paul Longsworth, vice president of new ventures, Fluor Corporation; Dr. John H. Moore, president emeritus of Grove City College; Dr. Rodney Nichols, president emeritus of the New York Academy of Sciences; Dr. Gil Omenn, professor of internal medicine, human genetics and public health and director of the Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan; Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, dean of the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific; Dr. Anne C. Petersen, a research professor at the Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Michigan; and Dr. Victor Rabinowitch, senior vice president (retired), The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation[6] .
CRDF Global's Advisory Council is chaired by Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, senior vice president of international relations (retired), The Boeing Company and vice chairman of Hills & Co. The other members of the Advisory Council are: Dr. Zhores I. Alferov, science director, A.F. loffe Physico–Technical Institute; Dr. Gail H. Cassell, Ph.D., vice president of scientific affairs and distinguished research scholar for infectious diseases, Eli Lilly and Company; Mr. Vinton G. Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist, Google; Ambassador James Franklin Collins, director and senior associate and diplomat in residence, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dr. Sidney B. Drell, senior fellow, Hoover Institution; Dr. Loren R. Graham, professor of history and science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dr. William Harris, president and CEO of the Science Foundation Arizona; Dr. Siegfried Hecker, senior fellow and former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory; Dr. Leon Lederman, a Nobel Prize in Physics laureate and former director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Dr. Richard Murphy, Ph.D., former president and CEO of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies; Dr. Frank Press, principal of The Washington Advisory Group; Dr. Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden; Kim Kavrell Savit, international business manager at the Science Applications International Corporation and adjunct professor of the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver; and Dr. Robert M. White, principal at The Washington Advisory Group [7].
Each year, CRDF Global presents the George Brown Award for International Scientific Cooperation to recognize the late Rep. George E. Brown, Jr.’s vision for international research cooperation, and his important role in the efforts leading to CRDF Global’s creation[8]. The award is presented to an individual for his or her critical work in advancing international cooperation in science and technology. The award was first presented in 2005 to mark CRDF Global’s tenth anniversary.
The George Brown Award is open to any individual in the policy, business, science, research, or technology community who has contributed substantially to advancing international science and technology cooperation. In 2011, CRDF Global is recognizing three individuals for their scientific and humanitarian achievements: Dr. Craig Barrett, a faculty member at the Thunderbird School of Global Management and former chairman of the Intel Corporation; Dr. Rita Colwell, chairman of Canon US Life Sciences, Inc., a distinguished university professor both at the University of Maryland at College Park and at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a 2011 U.S. science envoy; and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, vice chairman of Hills & Co., International Consultants, a career ambassador at the U.S. Department of State and the former ambassador to the Russian Federation, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the United Nations.
Past winners include Dr. Bruce Alberts; the late Dr. Norman Borlaug; U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN); Dr. Yuri Ossipyan; Dr. John "Jack" Gibbons; Dr. King K. Holmes; Dr. Zafra Lerman and Dr. Brian Tucker; and Dr. E. Daniel Hirleman[9] .