Science, Technology, and Public Policy

"President Donald Trump's executive actions of earlier this week, which attempt to undermine progress made under President Barack Obama to combat the menace of human-caused climate change, are yet another example of the new administration's propensity to let blind ideology "trump" clear-eyed science and good sense."

If this budget or anything close to it were enacted into law, the result would be a severe setback for international relations and America's standing in the world; for clean air and water for Americans: for progress in conquering cancer, influenza, and Alzheimer's; for the fight against human-caused climate change; for U.S. leadership in science and technology; for culture and the arts; and, yes, for American business, which depends on government services far more heavily than is generally recognized.  It can only be hoped that this misguided budget will be resoundingly rejected by Congress on a bipartisan basis.

John P. Holdren, Ph.D.

Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Senior Advisor to the President, The Woods Hole Research Center

Formerly President Obama’s Science Advisor and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (January 2009 – January 2017)

As assistant to the president for science and technology, director of the White House Office for Science and Technology Policy, and co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), Holdren has worked closely with Obama to reinvigorate America’s scientific capabilities on a range of policy fronts, from climate change and renewable energy to health care and nanotechnology.

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.

The Obama administration has proposed steep cuts in funding for improving security for dangerous nuclear materials. If approved, they would slow progress toward preventing the essential ingredients of nuclear bombs from falling into terrorist hands. Cutting too Deep reviews funding trends over the past four years and describes how the proposed cuts would delay nuclear and radiological material removal, research reactor conversion, and other work.

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.