Science, Technology, and Public Policy

The Project on Managing the Atom offers fellowships for pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and mid-career researchers for one year, with a possibility for renewal, in the stimulating environment of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. The online application for 2016-2017 fellowships opened December 15, 2015, and the application deadline is January 15, 2016. Recommendation letters are due by February 1, 2016.

Amidst intense negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 countries in Vienna on Iran's nuclear program, Professor Matthew Bunn was interviewed for a July 14 article in the Tehran Times about what a comprehensive agreement would look like and how the two sides of the dispute should approach the talks to obtain significant and substantive results.

"The surge in interest in Africa by China and India requires a different approach that does not view the continent as a helpless victim of foreign influence. To that end African countries are seeking to replace classical foreign policy that focuses on access to markets in return for raw materials with a new vision of economic diplomacy."

"The map of Africa as a hopeless collection of failing post-colonial economies is being redrawn before our very eyes. Credit should go to African leaders for their stubborn refusal to accept the future as predicted by others but to seek to change it. As they say, for Africa, the future is not what it used to be."

The Winter 2010/11 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 a major Belfer Center conference on technology and governance, the Center's involvement in the nuclear threat documentary Countdown to Zero, and a celebration of Belfer Center founder Paul Doty.

There is no endemic reason for Russian-U.S. relations to be as tense as they have become over the past several years. Th is situation is largely due, on one side, to mishandling of Russian affairs by both the Clinton and Bush administrations, and on the other by the obvious manipulation of anti-Americanism for domestic gain by the Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev administrations in Russia. Unfortunately, this means that only unilateral U.S. action can undermine the cynical policies of the Russian leadership and restore dynamism to the Russian-U.S. relationship.

The Winter 2008-09 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming research, activities, and analysis by Center faculty, fellows, and staff on critical global issues. "What should the next president do first?" is a question raised in this issue. Belfer Center experts respond to the question with advice on what they consider priority issues of national security, climate/energy policy, and the economic crisis.

The Winter 2008-09 issue also features take-aways from the Center’s recent “Acting in Time on Energy Policy” conference hosted by the Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group. In addition, it spotlights Belfer Center Faculty Affiliate Richard Clarkeand new Kennedy School Professor Nicholas Burns.

"...In 1975, France signed an agreement with Iraq authorizing the export of a research reactor and highly enriched uranium. According to French officials at the time, their aim was to obtain a permanent and secure oil supply from a country that provided 20 percent of its oil.

It worked. But it also had tremendous consequences for international and regional security."

"Set against the probable weakness of the threatened sanctions is the fact that in Iran’s domestic politics, abandonment of the challenged aspects of the nuclear program would be seen as an intolerable and unforgivable capitulation to Washington’s pressure and manipulations."