Any application for support must include scientists from Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) countries in order to qualify.

A Few Figures

- Each year about 13,000 scientists from EAPC countries are involved in the NATO Science Programme.
- In 1998, more than 6,000 scientists took part in 104 NATO scientific meetings.
- Almost 1,000 scientists from Russia alone have received grants to carry out work with scientists in NATO countries.
- About 500 Partner scientists have visited the United States with NATO support for scientific collaboration or training.


ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE WASHINGTON SUMMIT


From 23-25 April 1999, NATO held the 15th Summit in its 50 year history in Washington, DC. The Summit took place during an exceptional period in the Alliance’s history, in the midst of a commemoration of its 50th Anniversary, tempered by an unprecedented NATO air campaign aimed at ending and reversing the repressive policies and ethnic cleansing being conducted by the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia against the Kosovar Albanians.

Although much of the focus at the Summit was necessarily on the crisis in Kosovo, in Washington NATO leaders nonetheless also turned their attention to a host of other programmes and accomplishments with long-term implications for the Alliance.

The achievements of Washington fulfilled the promise of the Madrid Summit held two years earlier, in July 1997. At Madrid, the Alliance invited the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland to begin accession talks and promised that the door would remain open to others. In Washington, the leaders of these three countries took their place for the first time at the Summit table, and the Alliance unveiled an initiative in the form of a Membership Action Plan designed to help other interested countries prepare for possible membership in the future. “The three new members will not be the last,” Alliance leaders stated in The Washington Summit Communiqué. At Madrid, NATO leaders had pledged to enhance the Partnership for Peace programme and the full range of Alliance partnership activities; in Washington, leaders noted the progress achieved in this regard and unveiled new initiatives designed to continue the work. At Madrid, Alliance leaders had requested a review of the Strategic Concept (in essence the roadmap of Alliance tasks and the means to achieve them); in Washington a new Strategic Concept was approved, one that reflected the transformed Euro-Atlantic security landscape at the end of the 20th century. At Madrid, NATO and Ukraine had signed a Charter on a Distinctive Partnership; in Washington NATO leaders and the Ukrainian President held their first Summit meeting and acknowledged the importance of Ukraine to Euro-Atlantic security and stability.

The work of the Washington Summit is reflected in all the Summit documentation, but most comprehensively in the Washington Summit Communiqué and the Strategic Concept. The Communiqué captures, in a single document, the major themes of the Summit and of the Alliance at this key period in its history.