COLLABORATION IN BASIC SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (COBASE)

James Solomon hosted Giorgi Nakhutsrishvili, director of the Georgian Academy of Sciences Ketskhoveli Institute of Botany, Tbilisi, in April 1999. As a result of discussions conducted during the visit, the two colleagues outlined the most important prerequisites for development of basic botanical research in the Republic of Georgia. The first objective is to identify means for upgrading the basic infrastructure available at the Institute of Botany. This includes additions to the literature, specimen, and computer resources available and improvements to the institute’s physical facilities. Constructed in 1914, the building that houses the institute’s 1,000,000-specimen herbarium is in need of major structural repairs. Solomon and other colleagues at the Missouri Botanical Garden are working to identify funding sources to support this important work. The second goal is to develop a project to produce more widely accessible information on the vascular plant and bryophyte flora, first for Georgia and second for the entire Caucasus region. A significant body of knowledge about the Georgian flora already exists, but it is only available in Russian or Georgian and has been little circulated outside of the former Soviet Union. Solomon has provided the Georgian institute with a software package that will help in compiling and disseminating these valuable datasets. Their third goal is to continue and expand exploration in the Republic of Georgia aimed at generating new collections and new information for future floristic and monographic work. Solomon and Nakhutsrishvili plan to submit a proposal to the National Geographic Society for continued support of this research and for new exploration in Adjara, Meskheti and Javakheti (a tier of Georgian regions bordering Turkey and Armenia) for the 2001 season. In addition, they feel that the National Science Foundation’s Biotic Survey and Inventory Program offers promising prospects for support of their planned activities aimed at documenting and analyzing threatened species and habitats in Georgia.

Solomon notes that "the political climate in Georgia is presently very favorable towards collaborative activities in the natural sciences. Joint projects can provide significant benefits to western botanists through increased access to information on an ancient and diverse flora that is relatively unknown to most researchers, while at the same time providing the means to continue basic botanical research for Georgian botanists. The COBASE program has been an excellent way to provide face to face encounters that allow for the development of projects that might not otherwise have begun."