Science, Technology, and Public Policy

The Bering Strait region is a particularly unique area - one of the Arctic's most productive and sensitive environments but also a region increasingly facing pressure and challenges. Amidst an upheaval in relations between Russia and the other Arctic states exist transboundary risks associated with increased vessel activity, which continue to advance despite these deteriorated conditions.  

Please join the Harvard Kennedy School's Arctic Initiative, the Wilson Center's Polar Institute, and the World Wildlife Fund for a virtual workshop on transboundary risk management in the Bering Strait region.

Registration: This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP using the link below. For those who cannot attend live, the seminar will be recorded and available to watch on this page.

Accessibility: Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Speaker: Ariel Petrovics, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

Economic sanctions are one of the most common coercive tools of foreign policy, used regularly in an effort to change target state behavior. Yet despite their versatility and prevalence in international relations, sanctions are at best an unreliable tool of foreign policy. Indeed, many of the most important and publicized sanction attempts have failed to produce any desired change in the target. Existing literature on the effectiveness of sanctions has largely focused on whether or not sanctions eventually succeed, but this overlooks the arguable more policy relevant questions of when and under what conditions sanctions are effective tools of statecraft. The speaker's research  finds that sanctions with the greatest implications for international security — such as those that combat nuclear proliferation or foreign military aggression — fail even more catastrophically than their less salient counterparts.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Click here. Meeting ID number: 810311271

The second Arctic Innovators student cohort will present their ideas for the fast-changing Arctic region. Join us and vote for your favorite idea!

Light refreshments will be provided. Please bring your own reusable beverage container to help us reduce waste.

A public address by His Excellency Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, President of Iceland. Moderated by John Holdren, President Obama's Science Advisor and Director of the White Office of Science and Technology Policy (January 2009 – January 2017); Co-Director, Belfer Center's Science, Technology and Public Policy Program.

The first Arctic Innovators student cohort will present their ideas for the fast-changing Arctic region. Join us and vote for your favorite idea!

Bringing together students, investigators, policy makers, and others committed to understanding and communicating the human health impacts of global environmental change.

Harvard Book Store welcomes the Harvard Kennedy School's Venkatesh Narayanamurti and University of Virginia's Toluwalogo Odumosu for a discussion of their book, Cycles of Invention and Discovery: Rethinking the Endless Frontier. This event includes a book signing.

Sponsored by the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program and the Environment and Natural Resources Program

Cyber Security Project Director Michael Sulmeyer moderates a discussion on election hacking with CrowdStrike Inc. CEO and Co-Founder Dmitri Alperovitch, President of Verified Voting Pamela Smith, and Cyber Security Project Fellow Ben Buchanan 

Tracing the history of the problematic "basic" and "applied" categories, Cycles of Invention and Discovery: Rethinking the Endless Frontier documents how historical views of policymakers and scientists have led to the construction of science as a pure ideal on the one hand and of engineering as a practical (and inherently less prestigious) activity on the other

The U.N. Security Council 1540 Committee and the U.N. Office of Disarmament Affairs collaborated with the Stimson Center to create an international essay competition for undergraduate and postgraduate students. The winners will be announced, and some will be presenting their ideas at this event. The goals of the competition were to involve the younger generation in understanding and addressing the important issue of proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), i.e., chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and to solicit innovative student approaches to implementing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540 (2004) to support the Council’s Comprehensive Review of the resolution this year.