News & Announcements

The Biden Administration and automotive industry have announced ambitious targets for the number of electric vehicles they hope to deploy by 2030, but automakers are not yet on track to meet those targets, according to new analysis by researchers at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. 

Antonio Perry MPP 2024 and Monserrat Ocana MPP 2024 had the opportunity to intern with Iceland’s National Energy Authority (NEA) and contribute to the country’s ambitious climate journey. 

Over the next two years as on-road pilot programs and testing increase, self-driving vehicles will continue to move from novelty to closer to reality, meaning more drivers are likely to encounter them. Regulators must establish guidelines that ensure self-driving test vehicles are identifiable and consistent in their actions while on the road with human drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. Doing so will enhance people’s trust in self-driving vehicles while paving the way for drivers to safely interact with automated vehicle technology.

Former White House advisor Jason Bordoff, professor and founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), says the incoming Biden-Harris Administration will have the opportunity to both lift the nation out of recession and combat global climate change by crafting a thoughtful economic stimulus plan containing a significant green energy investment component.

The existing global political-economic order has been ruptured by the rise of China, a broad backlash against globalization, uncertainties about the U.S. commitment to a rules-based system, and most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. What form(s) might a future world order take, and what principles should guide efforts to construct it? The Future World Order event series will address these questions by examining individual topics ranging from traditional security issues such as arms control to newer, relevant issues such as digital trade. Professors Dani Rodrik and  Stephen M. Walt will moderate individual sessions.

The International Security Program (ISP) is still accepting applications for 2020–2021.  ISP is a multidisciplinary research group that develops and trains new talent in security studies by hosting pre- and postdoctoral research fellows. 

Dr. Matthew S. Meselson, Harvard University's Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences and co-Director of the Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons, received the $50,000 Future of Life Award at a ceremony at the University of Boulder's Conference on World Affairs on April 9, 2019.  The award honors Meselson's leading role in the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), an international treaty that not only affirmed the existing ban on the use of biological weapons, but also banned the production, stockpiling, and offensive research into biological weapons. The BWC also provides for a verification system.

Natalie Jaresko (MPP ’89), former Finance Minister of Ukraine, returned to Harvard on October 31^st, 2016 to take part in the Future of Diplomacy Project’s international speaker series. In a public seminar moderated by Faculty Director Nicholas Burns, Jaresko, who currently serves as chairwoman of the Aspen Institute Kyiv, reflected on her time in office from 2014 to 2016. In her two years in office, the Ukrainian government  had to contend with the Russian annexation of Crimea, a national debt crisis, widespread governmental corruption, and political instability.