Jan 01 1985The Foundation undertakes a grants program to help African, Asian and Latin American scientists collaborate on biomedical research relating to the use of contraceptives—a pioneering “South-to-South” venture.
Jan 01 1983Grants of $1 million each are made to Columbia University and to a joint program at the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University to foster research and training in Soviet foreign policy and behavior.
Jan 01 1981The Foundation launches a six-year demonstration effort to address the needs of single minority women who head households. The program eventually trains more than 2,500 women for employment through community-based organizations in four cities.
Jan 01 1980The Foundation launches the International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN) to design less costly and more effective health policies. The Network will expand over time to centers at 40 medical schools in 18 developing countries, where physicians learn how to conduct research on their countries’ most serious health problems.
Jan 01 1979After three decades of being unwelcome in China, the Foundation re-enters the country by responding to a request from Chinese officials to assist in establishing an Institute of Developmental and Reproductive Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
Jan 01 1978The Foundation sponsors a commission to assess the condition of the humanities in America and make recommendations. Issued five years later, its report—The Humanities in American Life—identifies a crisis in the quality of American public education.
Jan 01 1977The Foundation approves the first of a series of appropriations over the course of a decade to create an international network of biomedical research groups to study the “great neglected diseases” of the developing world. Diseases include sleeping sickness, leprosy, malaria, schistosomiasis, hookworm, river blindness and childhood diarrhea. By the program’s end, 360 trained scientists have collaborated in 26 countries.
