“I invite you now to share my optimistic outlook as we turn the first page of the new calendar year. We demonstrated remarkable resilience as we adjusted to two challenging years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Operations have found a new normal, in-person events have resumed, and students are back on campus.”

Marking one year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Belfer Center this week hosted Ukraine’s Foreign Minister for a discussion of the war and its significance for Ukraine and the world. In this special feature, we include video from Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba’s conversation with the Center’s Eric Rosenbach and Paula Dobriansky. We also include a report card on the war from Graham Allison and Kate Davidson, a policy brief from the Sexual Violence in Conflict project, interviews that highlight perspectives from the people of Ukraine and Russia, and new insights and perspectives from a range of experts on how the war is impacting global order as well as regions and people around the globe.

The Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School hosted a virtual conversation with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba Wednesday (Feb. 22) to discuss the war in Ukraine as it reaches a full year since Russia's invasion. 

Harvard Kennedy School has named Meghan L. O’Sullivan Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, effective July 2023.

Riikka Karppinen, a prominent youth leader, environmental activist, and politician from Finnish Lapland, has been appointed to the International Advisory Board of Harvard Kennedy School’s Arctic Initiative. As a Board member, Karppinen will leverage her substantial expertise in nature conservation, policymaking, activism, and communication to help the Arctic Initiative advance its research and education goals and train the next generation of interdisciplinary Arctic experts and leaders.

A major project on methane emissions, led by Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Director Robert Stavins, is the recipient of one of five inaugural grants for cross-disciplinary, solutions-focused projects tackling the challenges posed by global climate change — awarded by Harvard’s Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability. The grants were announced on Monday (February 13).

Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy David M. Turk discussed the federal government’s plans to foster the transition to clean energy at a Monday seminar held by the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

In January, two dozen Indigenous youth from across the circumpolar North visited Cambridge for the International Workshop on Indigenous Youth Leadership for the Changing Arctic. They joined Harvard Kennedy School students for the second half of IGA-67M: “Policy and Social Innovation for the Changing Arctic” for an intensive course in developing their own policy and social innovations to address issues in a region warming four times faster than the rest of the world. 

Reducing methane emissions can buy the world crucial time to avoid catastrophic global warming. A Harvard team that includes Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Robert Stavins, is helping provide policymakers with the tools to help policymakers do just that.

On February 2, the Pentagon announced that it had detected a Chinese surveillance balloon hovering over Montana. Subsequently, Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a planned trip to Beijing. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains it is a civilian airship. We asked Belfer Center experts to weigh in on possible national security implications of the incident.