Arctic Initiative 2019-2020 Year in Review

Friends and colleagues,

The Belfer Center’s Arctic Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School strives to increase understanding and improve policies to respond to what is happening in the changing Arctic region by initiating new research; by convening scientists,  policymakers, and diplomats; and by developing a new generation of public officials  and nongovernmental leaders  with a much greater knowledge of the factors that are affecting the Arctic ecosystems and the implications for the environmental, social, and economic systems around the globe. 

Since our launch in 2017, the Arctic Initiative has grown rapidly and has emerged as a leader on Arctic issues at the intersection of environmental science and policy. We have grown our team, expanded our course offerings, engaged more students, and developed key research partnerships that have allowed us to make substantial contributions to research and policy for the circumpolar Arctic region. 

Much of our work revolves around the idea of resilience—how communities can survive and thrive in times of rapid change. The global COVID-19 pandemic  has been a stark reminder about the importance of preparation and organization in defending against major threats to society, whether these emerge suddenly, as COVID-19 did, or over a period of decades, as climate change has and will. 

At the Arctic Initiative we have needed to respond to the new reality of COVID-19 with resilience of our own. We have had to test new formats for our research, our teaching, and our policy engagement, taking our research online, designing a virtual field-study course; and co-hosted a virtual innovation workshop, jointly with our Greenlandic collaborators in academia and government, to create the Greenland Policy Challenge. We packed the fall semester  with events that leveraged the best of what the new virtual working environment can offer, building community across the Arctic with less cost and less carbon. We remain resolved to continue our important work. 

John P. Holdren  ·  Henry Lee  ·  Halla Hrund Logadóttir  
Co-Directors, Arctic Initiative

Download the 2019-2020 Year in Review