Science, Technology, and Public Policy

David Eaves and Ben McGuire detail what Canada can learn from a tiny country that devised a coordinated, efficient system to serve its citizens using what's called platform government.

David Eaves and Kevin Frazier describe how companies chasing rapid growth can find surprising public sector parallels.

CAMBRIDGE MA – Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has convened the inaugural meeting of The Council on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a new effort to address critical questions about this far-reaching and rapidly evolving application for data and technology.  

On June 12-13, 2018, digital HKS welcomed public sector digital services teams from around the world to share stories of success, talk about lessons learned, and discuss the challenges they face in transforming government. The teams convened all agreed on North Star goals of building platform services and putting users at the center; what remains much more difficult is identifying how teams in very different political and technology contexts should think about how to reach that end-state. In this report, digital HKS shares best practices we gleaned from this group, to start a broader conversation for digital services groups around the world about what comes next.

Following the news that the Trump administration plans to abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, ten Belfer Center nuclear and U.S.-Russia relations experts offered their thoughts on the significance and consequences of this action.
 

The timeline below was compiled by Simon Saradzhyan and Mariana Budjeryn and the foreword was written by William Tobey (author bios below). As an accompaniment, Ms. Budjeryn has also interviewed Sam Nunn, the former senator whose efforts were key to securing U.S. funding to help a disintegrating Soviet Union dismantle and safeguard its nuclear weapons. The timeline authors would like to thank former RM student associate Andre Gellerman for his research support and Susan Koch for her insightful comments. This is an evolving draft, produced in cooperation with the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and with support from the center's Managing the Atom Project. A bibliography can be found at the bottom of the page.

"What we observed is people often confuse red rules (which cannot be easily changed) with blue rules (which are, at best, guidelines). The reality is procurement law allows for a fair degree of flexibility. Procurement lore does not."

A former governor of Texas – the state that produces more crude oil, natural gas, lignite coal, wind power and refined petroleum products than any other – would seem to be a natural choice for secretary of energy. Yet, assuming he is confirmed by the Senate, Rick Perry will face a paradox.

"Across Washington, there are public servants who did not vote Republican who are returning to their jobs to serve the best they can. The current administration has been effective in issuing a call to arms to civic technologists to help government. Now, having created a critical mass of civic technologists in DC, can it hold to continue to have the influence and grow the capabilities a 21st century government needs? Maintaining this critical mass is a test that any effort to institutionalize change must clear."

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.