President-elect Barack Obama announced in his radio address Saturday that he has selected Harvard's John P. Holdren to serve as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology in the new administration. The post, popularly known as "the President's science advisor," also includes directorship of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President and requires Senate confirmation. 

A new report from the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements outlines several promising ideas for successors to the Kyoto Protocol. The report also provides guidance on the most intractable challenges facing global climate negotiators, including participation by developing countries, how to reduce deforestation, and how to prevent a "collision" between climate policy and international trade law.

The world still faces a "very real" risk that terrorists could get a nuclear bomb, and the Obama Administration must make reducing that risk a top priority of U.S. security policy and diplomacy, according to Securing the Bomb 2008, a report released today.

With financial markets in chaos, several of the leading economists affiliated with Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center -- including Lawrence H. Summers, Martin Feldstein, and Paul Volcker -- are actively advising policymakers on next steps.

Robert Stavins has launched the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, a two-year effort to identify key design elements of a future international agreement on climate change. The project aims to help develop a plan that is “scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic” and useful to both developing and developed countries.

New steps are urgently needed to broaden and accelerate work to keep nuclear weapons and the materials needed to make them out of terrorist hands, according to Securing the Bomb, 2007, a report released today.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., a member of the Belfer Center's Board of Directors, is University Distinguished Service Professor, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations, and Dean Emeritus of the Kennedy School of Government. Nye has served in government as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and Deputy Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology. His books include Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, Understanding International Conflict, and The Power Game: A Washington Novel.