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

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.

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

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.

The aim of this symposium is to explore areas of mutual cooperation between MIT and Africans countries in areas of science, technology and innovation. The event will bring together high-ranking officials from government, industry and academia.

This event will take place at the Whitehead Institute McGovern Auditorium, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge. Please RSVP to this event at starrforum@mit.edu.

** We have reached capacity for this event and can no longer take additional RSVPs. However, we are offering a live-stream of the event from 2-5:30pm at: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/live**

The symposium examines emerging trends of 3D printing and additive manufacturing (using digital 3D design data). Drawing from the case of Singapore, the symposium reviews innovation policies being pursued by governments to harness the power of additive manufacturing. The symposium will feature a demonstration by Pirate3D Inc., which will donate printers to African institutions.

The Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program is proud to co-sponsor a symposium on science and technology issues in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, science legislation after the 2008 election, and the future of science policy.

International conference on "Technological Innovation and Economic Renewal: Designing New Policy Tools for Developing Countries"

International Conference on Technological Innovation and Development: Lessons from Taiwan