Professor and Head of Physics Jeremiah D. Sullivan was just appointed to the Advisory Panel of the Security-Related Civil Science and Technology Sub-Programme by the NATO Science Committee. The appointment, which begins in September 2001, is for four years.

The NATO Science Programme was founded in 1958, with the establishment of the NATO Science Committee, following the recommendations of a Committee on Non-Military Cooperation in NATO. The report of that Committee asserted that progress in the fields of science and technology can be decisive in determining the security of nations and their positions in world affairs, and stated that science and technology was an area of special importance to the Atlantic community. The Science Committee immediately recognized that the training of young scientists and engineers was of paramount importance, and introduced a group of support mechanisms which in essence remain today—Advanced Study Institutes, Collaborative Research Grants and Science Fellowships. Further mechanisms have been added, and sometimes deleted, over the years. The predominant characteristics of the Programme have continued to be an emphasis on cooperation and catalysis, support for high scientific quality, and a capacity for rapid response to new developments.

Since the early 1990s the NATO Science Programme has served a wider scientific community, as scientists from NATO's Partner countries of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council have become eligible for support, while at the same time a proportion of the Programme has been reserved for the traditional collaboration between scientists in NATO countries. In 1999, with the exception of a small number of Fellowships, the Science Programme was transformed so that support is now devoted to collaboration between Partner-country and NATO-country scientists or to contributing towards research support in Partner countries. About 10,000 scientists are currently involved in the Science Programme each year.

The Science Committee is assisted in its work of assessing and selecting applications for support by advisory panels whose members are selected by the Committee from among the international scientific community. Panel members put their professional expertise at the disposal of the Committee, and this direct involvement of the scientific community has been invaluable in arriving at and maintaining the high scientific standard of the Programme.