Science & Technology

Once again, new economic readings from the World Bank's International Comparison Program have fed into the long-going debate over whether China is surpassing the United States as an economic and financial power. And once again, the answer to that question is a qualified "no."

The United States government must require private industry and research institutions to take this threat seriously and develop cybersecurity policy and practices that will result in multiple layers of cybersecurity protections. This layered approach will require combined efforts from both the government and private industry to create an overlapping protection scheme.

In developing countries, where the coronavirus pandemic is potentially at its most dangerous and costly, the authors call for governments to work with academic institutions to build and sustain computational modelling capacity.

Cristine Russell details how the seasonal scientific field work in the Arctic — from the Toolik Field Station on Alaska's North Slope to ice core drilling in Greenland — is being postponed or cancelled this year because of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

Belfer Center Research Assistant and China Working Group Coordinator Christopher Li is quoted in this Newsweek article about China's hacking of coronavirus research from American universities and laboratories.  

The COVID-19 recovery response from the UK government should include increased and well-targeted R&D investments to foster the energy transition and a more sustainable economy.

Stephen Walt and Bruce Schneier are two of the ten leading global thinkers that Foreign Policy invited to each give their take on an expansion of government powers as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

In this episode of Resources Radio, host Daniel Raimi talks with David Keith, a physics and public policy professor at Harvard University and one of the world's leading experts on solar geoengineering. Keith outlines prominent examples of solar geoengineering technologies in development—from ambitious ideas, such as sending aerosols to the stratosphere, to more operational solutions, like painting roofs white to reflect more sunlight into space. An advocate for research on solar geoengineering, Keith discusses how coalitions among like-minded nations and clearer guidance from policymakers could expand deployment of promising technologies.

The world is on the cusp of a geopolitical reset. The global pandemic could well undermine international institutions, reinforce nationalism and spur de-globalization. But far-sighted leadership could also rekindle cooperation, glimmers of which appeared in the G-20’s offer of debt relief for some of the world’s poorest countries, a joint plea from more than 200 former national leaders for a more coordinated pandemic response and an unprecedented multinational pact to arrest the crash in oil markets.  

In this piece, we will look at the various public purpose considerations as they relate to the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines for coronavirus.