International cooperation in the field of space life sciences: European Space Agency's (ESA) perspectives.
International cooperation in life sciences, as in any other of the space research fields, takes place at two distinct levels: scientist to scientist, or agency to agency. This article is more concerned with the agency to agency level, which involves the arrangements made between two partners for the flying of experiments and/or hardware on space missions. International cooperation is inherent to the European Space Agency (ESA), since it consists of 13 member states (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and West Germany) and one associated member, Finland. ESA also has special cooperative arrangements with Canada. Life sciences research in ESA is carried out within the Microgravity Research Program, an optional program to which member states (in this case all but Austria and Ireland) contribute "a la carte," and receive their "share" accordingly. Therefore, many of the activities are naturally linked to international arrangements within the member states, and also to arrangements between the agencies, with life sciences being the dominant activity between NASA and ESA.
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Microgravity Office, European Space Agency Headquarters, Paris, France.
D000818:Animals; D001690:Biological Science Disciplines / Q000458:organization & administration*; D002170:Canada; D005060:Europe; D006077:Government Agencies / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007390:International Agencies / Q000458:organization & administration*; D007391:International Cooperation; D007564:Japan; D010944:Plants; D013026:Space Flight / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000639:trends; D014586:USSR; D014481:United States; D018557:United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration; D014893:Weightlessness