Director of the International Center for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS) Yannis Papanikolau will visit Armenia December 18-20. In the course of the visit he will meet with the country leadership, will visit a number of research centers. Within the period of Armenia's presidency at the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) with the assistance of the ICBSS the first ministerial forum of the organization member countries on issues of science and technologies will be held in Yerevan in April 2003. As reported by the Armenian defense ministry press service, the ICBSS was formed under the aegis of the BSEC in 1988 as a coordinating body for cooperation in the scientific sphere. One of the main directions of the Center's activities is comparison of program proposals of the ICBSS member countries within the scientific and technological fields and their generalized presentation to regional organizations (first of all to the European Union) with the purpose of getting financial support in their implementation.