The Moscow-based International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) coordinates Russian research collaborations with Western organizations and promotes commercialization of Russian discoveries and technologies. ISTC doubles upas risk manager tasked with preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

With a staff of around 170 (Russians plus a few westerners) ISTC caters to an A-list clientele, including the US Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and Department of Agriculture (USDA), and multinational companies such as Boeing, General Atomic, BASF, Bayer, and Samsung.

ISTC has become a gateway to the expertise of thousands of scientists in more than 700 institutes in Russia and six other former Soviet republics. And not by accident, ISTC keeps those scientists employed. The US, EU, and Japanese governments finance ISTC essentially to keep unemployed former Soviet scientists from accepting job offers in places like Libya and North Korea. ISTC has managed more than 1,800 peacetime research projects and encouraged 52,000 former weapons researchers to stay home so far with the assistance of foreign patronage.

The ISTC "has been the pioneer in redirecting scientists in the former Soviet Union," says Tom Owens, CEO of the US Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF), a private, nonprofit foundation with a similar mission on a much smaller budget. "I believe they are succeeding," says Owens, whose own Arlington-based organization, commissioned by Congress in 1995, manages scientific collaborations between former Soviet Union researchers and US weapons scientists.

Amy Smithson, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, also approves of ISTC's progress.The organization is "definitely making a contribution in tackling a very difficult proliferation problem," she adds. Endorsements do not banish worries, however, that the legacy of Soviet communism still makes Russian business risky business. Biotechnology is the best funded of ISTC-supported sciences, consuming $180 million (US) or one-third of the $540 million funneled through the ISTC since 1994. Nevertheless, "a lot of pharma companies are afraid to do business in Russia," says Patrick Russo, an American molecular biologist who works for ISTC. "It's a hard sell."

And while its gross domestic product is growing at a rapid 6 per cent per year according to the US Central Intelligence Agency, Russia is still dependent on exports of cheap natural commodities, such as oil, gas, and timber, rather than intellectual products or manufactured goods that attract a stronger world price. The government has yet to build trust in its institutions; corruption, political intervention in the justice system, and a weak banking system are only some of the many problems that discourage investment.

- Tom Hollon