UNITED-STATES RUSSIA COOPERATION - OCEAN-TECHNOLOGY-96/

An ''open'' workshop entitled United States/Russia Ocean Technology '9 6 (OT '96) will be held in Moscow on April 15-18, 1996. A cooperative workshop is long overdue and presents a good opportunity to provide th e foundation needed for long-term cooperation in a vital sphere of glo bal interest. Workshop plaits, initiated in 1991 through National Scie nce Foundation (NSF) and NOAA collaboration, ultimately were funded in 1994 through a NSF proposal grant. Major topics to be covered are env ironmental ? emote sensing, hydroacoustic systems and application meth ods, oceanographic instrumentation, and underwater vehicles and system s. The objective of OT '96 is to identify and develop areas of mutual benefit for cooperative projects in research and development with an e mphasis on government/academic/industry partnerships. Russia has been very active and made great strides in marine, maritime, and naval tech nology during the preceding decades as part of the Soviet Union. While participants for the workshop have been selected primarily based on t echnology topics and related experience, others interested in potentia l joint ventures are encouraged to attend as observers. Workshop topic s for review and discussion and some existing linkages and new proposa ls are briefly mentioned herein. A report on the findings of OT '96, w ith emphasis on identified productive areas for cooperation and recomm endations for follow-on activities, will be disseminated in fall 1996.