A proposal: A Joseph Priestly Fellowship

The State Department offers Franklin Fellowships, "a unique and innovative executive development vehicle via which the government taps citizens’ knowledge and which enables approved organizations to promote public service by their professionals". Franklin of course was a polymath, whose scientific reputation made him an especially effective diplomat.

It also offers, through the offices of the National Academies, the Jefferson Science Fellowships, which provide a model for engaging the American academic scientific, technological and engineering communities in the formulation and implementation of U.S. foreign policy. Jefferson too was a polymath, effective as a diplomat, a scholar and a technological innovator.

I suggest that the State Department support a third, comparable fellowship to be named after Joseph Priestley. Priestley, a friend to both Franklin and Jefferson, was also a polymath, perhaps most famous as a scientist for his research on gases which included the discovery of Oxygen. He was also an educator, a philosopher, a religious leader and a supporter of the American Revolution in Europe. He immigrated to the United States in 1794, perhaps the first great European scientist to do so, and remained in this country until his death a decade later.

The Priestly Fellowships would be offered to citizens of other countries who would work within the U.S. foreign policy establishment on global issues of importance to the United States. Thus they might function in the science attaché of the State Department, the programs of development assistance such as those of USAID, or in the role of international health, agricultural or environmental officers.

The U.S. Government already employs foreign nationals in such roles in its missions abroad. A Priestly Fellowship program would complement these existing programs, recruiting distinguished scientists, technological innovators and engineers for limited periods, after which they would presumably return to their previous positions. The program would allow the Government to reach out to obtain services from the "best and brightest" of the global intellectual community to solve problems of global significance.

I believe that such a program, if well run, would help provide international recognition to intellectual leaders in other countries. Moreover, the scientists involved in the program would gain appreciation for the United States and make contacts with their American counterparts which they would retain on returning to their previous duties; thus a Priestley Fellowship program would be a useful element of our public diplomacy.