When international partnerships go wrong

摘要

The recent discovery of the Higgs boson by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research made up of 20 member states, shows how international cooperation can lead to success in science that is otherwise unachievable. But there are challenges in working across borders. As the current crisis with the euro illustrates, political and financial problems hit some partners harder than others. In my final year as director of Science and Robotic Exploration at the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2011,1 had to face withdrawal of US funds from two major joint missions, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and a planned mission to Jupiter.