VZCZCXRO5222
RR RUEHPD
DE RUEHLI #1321/01 1350818
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 150818Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY LISBON
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5858
INFO RUEHPD/AMCONSUL PONTA DELGADA 0329

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 LISBON 001321 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
PASS TO OES/STC (ANITA EISENSTADT) 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: TSPA TBIO SENV PREL PO
SUBJECT: PORTUGAL: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY SUBCOMMITTEE 
 
REF: 06 LISBON 2162 
 
Summary 
------- 
¶1.  In preparation for the May 18 Bilateral Commission, 
Embassy officials met with Portuguese counterparts on April 
19 to review bilateral science and technology (S&T) 
cooperation. Discussion focused on Embassy organized 
conferences, the Embassy Science Fellow program, and fuel 
conversion at the nuclear research reactor.  The Portuguese 
delegation also provided an update on various initiatives 
between the GOP and American universities.  End Summary. 
 
Committee Members 
----------------- 
¶2.  On April 19, Embassy Lisbon hosted the S&T Subcommittee 
meeting in preparation for the May 18 Bilateral Commission. 
The US delegation was led by Pol/Econ Counselor and included 
Deputy Pol/Econ Counselor and ESTH Officer.  MFA Interim 
Deputy Director for the Americas, Manuel Grainha do Vale, 
headed the Portuguese delegation.  Other participants 
included Sofia Seabra from the Ministry of Science, 
Technology, and Higher Education (MCTES) and Rui Vallera from 
the Luso-American Foundation (FLAD). 
 
Conferences 
----------- 
¶3.  Pol/Econ Counselor opened the meeting by highlighting the 
various conferences, all with a strong S&T component, 
organized by the Embassy in March.  The Embassy hosted an 
Education Seminar, with former Governor Jeb Bush as the 
keynote speaker, on March 2.  On March 8, the Pol/Econ 
Section and the Superior Institute of Agronomy organized a 
half-day conference on biotech crops.  USDA Embassy Science 
Fellow Ann Marie Thro presented one of the sessions, speaking 
on U.S. and EU regulation processes and the benefits of 
biotech crops to farmers, consumers, the environment, and 
developing countries.  On March 19 and 20, the Embassy, with 
the assistance of the Institute of Applied Science and 
Technology (ICAT) and FLAD, hosted a two-day workshop on 
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). 
 
Embassy Science Fellow Program 
------------------------------ 
¶4. ESTH Officer briefed the Portuguese delegation on the 
accomplishments of the Embassy Science Fellow (ESF) Program. 
Since the last Bilateral Commission, the Embassy hosted two 
additional Fellows ) Larry Suter from the National Science 
Foundation and Ann Marie Thro from the U.S Department of 
Agriculture.  The current Fellow, Liz Williams from NASA, 
will be in Portugal until May 27 focusing on public outreach 
and promoting links between Portuguese institutions and NASA. 
Pol/Econ Counselor noted that, due to the upcoming Portuguese 
presidency on the European Commission, the Embassy does not 
plan to host any additional fellows until January 2008. 
 
¶5. As a result of the ESF program, several new S&T 
cooperative initiatives have been launched.  Discussions 
between Kathleen Collins, from the National Institutes of 
Health, and FLAD during her September/October 2006 fellowship 
resulted in the creation of a three-year conference series on 
tropical diseases.  The conferences aim to bring together 
American and lusophone researchers working on the prevention, 
detection, and treatment of infectious diseases in Africa. 
The first conference, focusing on tuberculosis, is scheduled 
for October 2007 in Lisbon and will grant six 10,000 euro 
research awards.  Another new collaboration developed with 
the assistance of USDA,s Ann Marie Thro concerns the 
creation of a new rice germplasm exchange program between the 
U.S. National Plant Germplasm System and Portuguese plant 
research institutions. 
 
Nuclear Reactor Fuel Conversion 
------------------------------- 
¶6. Following procedural delays reported during the last 
Bilateral Commission (reftel), the International Atomic 
Energy Agency (IAEA), the GOP, and the USG signed the Project 
and Supply Agreement in December 2006 to convert the 
highly-enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU) 
at the Portuguese Investigation Reactor.  On January 25, the 
Council of Ministers approved the agreement, and it was 
published in the Diario da Republica on April 5.  The 
Portuguese Technological and Nuclear Institute (ITN) and the 
Department of Energy agreed on a new deadline of May 31, 2007 
for the termination of HEU, with the conversion to LEU to 
occur in June.  Both sides expressed satisfaction that the 
issue had been resolved. 
 
Agreements with American Universities 
------------------------------------- 
¶7.  The MCTES representative updated the S&T Subcommittee on 
 
LISBON 00001321  002 OF 002 
 
 
the status of collaborative university agreements under the 
Prime Minister's Technology Plan.  In October, Prime Minister 
Socrates signed agreements with both the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology (MIT), focusing on engineering and 
management, and with Carnegie-Mellon University, centering on 
communication and information technology.  The MCTES 
Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) recently called 
for nominations for graduate students to study in the United 
States as part of the Portugal-MIT joint PhD program (Note: 
FCT already funds 320 Portuguese PhD students and over 90 
post-doctorates to study in American universities).  On March 
2, MCTES and the University of Texas/Austin entered an 
agreement to collaborate on digital media and S&T 
commercialization activities.  Expanding the scope to new 
universities, on April 16, MCTES signed a MOU with Harvard 
Medical School to perform an assessment of possible areas of 
cooperation. 
 
Comment 
------- 
¶8. The S&T Subcommittee Meeting yielded no surprises.  Both 
sides expressed satisfaction with the level of cooperation 
and the number of activities undertaken during the last six 
months.  The Portuguese delegation strongly endorsed the 
Embassy Science Fellows program but understood that the 
demands of the upcoming EU Presidency would affect the number 
of Fellows and the scope of S&T cooperation for the rest of 
the year. 
O'Neal