CISAC’s dialogues are based on two fundamental rationales that define the committee’s approach to its work. First, nongovernmental channels of communication play a critical role in building and sustaining cooperative approaches to international security. Second, scientists can make a unique contribution to such nongovernmental activities, particularly those that engage countries where official relations are or have been adversarial, because of the special relevance as well as nonideological character of the scientific and technological facts underlying many international security questions and also because of the mutual respect scientists tend to hold for one another based on intellectual accomplishment independent of political allegiance.

RUSSIA

CISAC’s original purpose was to keep communication open and ideas flowing between Soviet and American scientists during a time of extraordinary tension in official relations. Thirty bilateral meetings, alternating between the United States and the former Soviet Union, have taken place since 1981. CISAC's counterpart group from the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), is currently headed by Academician Yuriy Ossipian, a former member of the RAS Presidium and former director of the RAS Institute of Solid State Physics.

CHINA

CISAC's dialogue in China was the first and remains one of the few sustained bilateral channels of nongovernmental communication on international and regional security issues with an important set of Chinese scientists and policy analysts. The chair of the counterpart group is Hu Side, former president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics and a longtime advocate of U.S.-Chinese nongovernmental contacts. Full bilateral meetings normally alternate between the United States and China every 12-15 months. In addition to the full bilateral meetings, in 1995 the Chinese proposed holding smaller seminars in China to permit discussion of issues in greater depth and detail and these have been held at least once a year ever since.

INDIA

In January 2004 CISAC held the fifth full meeting of its dialogue with Indian counterparts in Goa, as well as a workshop on U.S.-Indian cooperation in counterterrorism. This dialogue began with the visit of an Academy delegation to India in January 1998 that also initiated other new cooperative programs. CISAC's counterpart group is organized by the National Institute for Advanced Studies in Bangalore.

EUROPE

Regular meetings of European academies and science societies, called the "Amaldi Conference on International Peace and Security" in honor of the late president of the Accademia Lincei, Eduardo Amaldi, are held each year. The 16th Amaldi conference was held in Trieste in November 2004.