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Invitations to attend the World Conference on Science in Budapest later this month have gone out to 150 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Most of these have gone to organizations of scientists, although Unesco officials say that other groups, such as environmentalist NGOs, are welcome to apply.

The NGOs will only have observer status at the conference. But they may be allowed to address its plenary sessions and to make interventions during debates, say officials.

Representatives of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are expected to attend, although there is no environmentalist voice on the main preparatory committee. This was set up to coordinate NGO responses to the conference draft documents. Mauricio Iaccarino, Unesco's assistant director-general for science, said in London this month that “no anti-science or pseudo-science people have been invited [to Budapest]”.

The NGO committee is made up of representatives of the Third World Academy of Sciences, the International Council for Social Sciences, the World Federation of Scientific Workers, and the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences. It was asked to begin consulting NGOs at the end of May.

One senior member of a science NGO says there are good reasons for restricting attendance from environmental NGOs, even though these have had a strong presence at meetings of other UN agencies, such as the World Health Organization and the environment conventions. “There will be no mass jamboree. The meeting will be more focused, and we will get things done.”

A Unesco spokesman says there is no attempt to exclude environmental groups, adding that he is still processing applications from those who want to attend. He says that science-based organizations are predominant because of their affiliation to Unesco or to ICSU, the International Council for Science, which are jointly organizing the conference. He points out that NGOs are often members of official government delegations.

NGOs have been allocated two half-day sessions during the conference, on 27 and 28 June, to comment on and suggest amendments to the draftDeclaration andFramework for Action documents.

Unesco has also set up a committee to coordinate the NGO community's responses to the draft conference documents, with a deadline for submissions of 20 June, says Andre Jaegle, president of the Paris-based World Federation of Scientific Workers, and a member of the committee.

Conference secretary Howard Moore says: “We hope there will be some controversy, and that it is not just a talking shop for politicians.”

Full text: http://helix.nature.com/wcs/a43.html