Reports & Papers

Over the last several decades, the U.S.’s domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity has declined. The CHIPS Act aims to reverse this trend by investing over $50 billion in direct funding and loan subsidies to expand semiconductor research and development and manufacturing in the U.S. This primer focuses on the workforce challenges that will be spurred by this microelectronics industry expansion and proposes how community colleges can play a critical role in addressing these challenges. 

Direct air capture (DAC) is a type of technology that captures carbon dioxide directly from the air. As the negative impacts of climate change become ever more apparent, governments and private industries have funneled increasing support toward DAC as a critical pathway toward achieving a net-zero future. Although a promising technology, wide-scale deployment of DAC faces several significant challenges.

Smart wearables are quickly becoming the next wave of ubiquitous technologies due to their vast market penetration and broad utility. In the healthcare setting, smart wearables may be used to advance preventative health measures, emergency medicine, and primary care. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the way that healthcare is done, but major technical and nontechnical limitations exist and the regulation of these technologies is still underdeveloped.

NATO aspires to take the lead in understanding and adapting to the impact of climate change on security. The new Strategic Concept declares that climate change is a defining challenge of our time, with a profound impact on Allied security. Now, the Alliance and the Allies must “walk the talk” by preparing to face the emerging climate change-driven challenges and adapting their armed forces to the new climate conditions created by global warming. This paper will begin by answering the most pressing questions about NATO and climate change: Is climate change a security threat? Does climate security fit into NATO’s mission? And is NATO the best forum to address climate change? It will then review NATO’s current actions on the climate, and finally make some proposals for the Alliance to implement a climatized perspective on security to climate-proof its assets and capacities and effectively accomplish its mission and tasks.

Digital evidence–primarily from device searches–has made it easier for law enforcement to identify, harass, and prosecute LGBTQ people on the basis of their identity. This new report by Technology and Public Purpose fellow and Berkman Klein Center affiliate Afsaneh Rigot draws on years of in-depth research, including reviews of individual court case files and interviews with defense attorneys in Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, to demonstrate the painful and unjust impacts of these developments, as well as the communities’ resilience. 

Afsaneh Rigot has deep experience with both the needs and views of queer people in MENA as well as engaging tech companies to make meaningful change. She advocates for a methodology she terms Design from the Margins. Rigot calls on companies to use the findings of this report to build from the essential needs of those most impacted by their tools, creating better tech for all users in the process.

Platforms can bring challenging and divisive policy issues to a new kind of democratic process, enabling a ‘people’s mandate’ for their policies and helping mitigate corporate and partisan power.

How can United States policymakers better understand the next generation of emerging technologies and their societal implications? How can we make more educated decisions on the basic and applied research needed to solve the next generation of emerging threats? 

The 117th Congress and the Biden Administration must urgently address these questions to protect the lives and livelihoods of those living in the United States.
 

Despite a technically successful election with a record-breaking voter turnout,  U.S. institutions and procedures have not created the kinds of shared public consensus over the results of the 2020 election that they were supposed to. The authors write that the United States needs a dynamic stability, one that incorporates new forces into American democracy rather than trying to deny or quash them. This report is their attempt to explain what this might mean in practice

By investing in the public and private sector research and development in this space, and by fostering a community of researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors literate in CO2 capture opportunities, the United States can be the leader of this new economic sector. It is essential for the Nation to build a vibrant and sustained research and development community spanning the public sector, academic and research domains, and for-profit companies, ensuring world leadership in this new technological domain.

Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) convened a strategy group of experts and former government officials from the United States and Europe over the past year to discuss the crisis in the transatlantic relationship and to propose a strategy to revive and strengthen it.